Small question about pronunciation / reading

[dmclean6354604]

So, it's a simple question, but I haven't been able to figure out the answer myself despite repeated efforts. I tried, really.

The Korean word for phone is 전화, so when I read this, I think jeon-hwa in Romanization. However, Koreans seem to pronounce this more like jeo-na in Romanization. But I don't understand why. I assume that sounds get dropped or smoothed out, but it seems like this happens only for "phone". Or are there other, similar examples?

Thanks!

[jaehwi]

Hello,

This is Jaehwi from Koreanclass101.com

Korean people usually skip the pronunciation of ㅎ(h) if that's placed in the middle of sentence.

For example, you can see the h sound in 전화 (jeonhwa). In this case, you can see that some Koreans read it as 전와(jeonwa) For sure, you can still read it as 전화(jeonhwa) as well.

You can see the same patten in the words like 번호(beonho / numbers)-> 번오(beon-o), 간호(ganho / nursing)->간오(gano)

I hope this helps.

Thank you.

- Jaehwi / Koreanclass101.com

[dmclean6354604]

Korean people usually skip the pronunciation of ㅎ(h) if that's placed in the middle of sentence.

Ah ha! That explains it. I was curious about 번호 for the same reason.

Thanks very much.

[dmclean6354604]

Also, I assume this is true for 변호사 --> 변오사?

[trutherous]

Also, I assume this is true for 변호사 --> 변오사?

Generally I would agree that ㅎis diminished in these cases but it also depends on the person. Everyone's pronunciation is a little different and while some people enunciate things very clearly others (most others) tend to muddle their words together and round off the sharp corners. I would recommend students of Korean take care to use crisp enunciation because there are numerous instances where a slight variance in pronunciation creates a totally different meaning such as the difference here:

고향이 어디인가요? -Where is your hometown?
고양이 어디인가요? -Where is the cat?

Now usually one should inquire about the location of someone's hometown using a bit more respect than asking where a cat is, but you can easily see by this example where a diminished ㅎ sound could lead to confusion on the part of the listener. In any case context context context is the key.

[dmclean6354604]

Hello,

That's a valid point. These are mostly "unspoken" rules of pronunciation in causal conversation, not necessarily formal or textbook Korean. It just threw me off on some KClass101 lessons because I read the Hangeul verbatim on the lesson notes, but the speakers pronunciation was noticeably different. I just wanted to ensure I wasn't imagining things.