Double Finals 1

Korean Alphabet 2

Course 2 · Chapter 7 · Double Finals 1

ㄳ ㄵ ㄶ ㄺ — Two Consonants at the Bottom

In Korean Alphabet 1 you learned that a block can end in a final consonant (batchim). Now meet blocks that end in two consonants. Wikipedia's Hangul page lists 11 of them as "heterogeneous consonant digraphs": ㄳ ㄵ ㄶ ㄺ ㄻ ㄼ ㄽ ㄾ ㄿ ㅀ ㅄ. This chapter takes four, the next two chapters take the rest. From this chapter on, the romanisation fades: words are shown in Hangul first and the romanisation is behind a click.

Your Four Digraphs — ㄳ ㄵ ㄶ ㄺ

How They Are Written

• Wikipedia's Hangul page says "final heterogenous digraph consonant clusters are orthographically considered to be two different letters combined, but phonologically considered to be a single letter". On paper there are two letters; in sound, one.
• Block rule: "If the final consonant is a combination, place the letters side by side" at the bottom of the block. So in 닭 the ㄹ and ㄱ sit side by side under the ㅏ.
• Counting: the page gives 19 possible initials, 21 vowels and 28 final options, which combine to give 11,172 possible blocks.

Which Consonant Do You Hear?

Wikipedia's Korean phonology page first notes that "only /p, t, k, m, n, ŋ, l/ may occur finally": just seven sounds can end a block. It then gives the rule for clusters: when a word ends in two consonants and stands alone, "one of the consonants is not expressed". The clusters are "expressed" in full "only when they are followed by a vowel". The rule for which one drops, in the page's words:

• if there is an /h/, "which cannot appear in final position, it will be that" that drops;
• "otherwise it will be a coronal consonant", and if the sequence is two coronals, "the voiceless one (/s, tʰ, tɕ/) will drop, and /n/ or /l/ will remain".

• The dropped letter is not always lost. The same page says that when the cluster is followed by a consonant the same reduction takes place "but a trace of the lost consonant may remain in its effect on the following consonant": a dropped /h/ "will leave it aspirated". Its examples include ㄴ + ㅎ followed by ㄷ giving [ntʰ].
• Before a vowel, both are heard. The first stays at the end of its block and the second moves across to start the next syllable.
• Exceptions exist. The page notes that ㄹ + ㄱ followed by ㄱ can stay as [lk͈], with the ㄹ not elided. I note this and do not teach the rule here.

Example Blocks

Each block has the same top two layers you know (consonant and vowel) and a pair of letters side by side at the bottom.

Look-Alike Warnings

• ㄴ + ㅎ and ㄴ + ㅈ. ㄶ has a ㅎ (hat on a circle) after the ㄴ; ㄵ has a ㅈ (a roof on a line).
• ㄹ + ㄱ and ㄳ. ㄺ begins with ㄹ; ㄳ begins with ㄱ and ends with ㅅ.
• Digraph and single final. 닭 (ㄹ + ㄱ) is not 달 (ㄹ alone): count the letters at the bottom.

Read It — Words With ㄳ ㄵ ㄶ ㄺ

Read the Hangul first and say it aloud. Then click to check how it is written in romanisation and how it sounds. Several are verbs in their dictionary form, which ends in 다.

Try It Yourself — 연습

Say each answer out loud first, then click to check.