pronunciation and romaji

[kraemder_226527]

I am new and trying to cram vocabulary.. started about 5 days ago. I'm noticing on the core list that some of the romaji sounds don't really reflect the korean pronunciation. And not because there isn't a romaji equivalent it just seems wrong:

개 gae dog

Is one I was just looking at now although there's others. In the audio file, it really sounds like kae instead gae.

[community.korean]

Hi there,

As I mentioned in a different post, ㄱ is normally pronounced as a soft "k" when placed at the beginning of a word and more of a "g" in the middle of a word. But, remember it is a soft "k" and not identical to the English "k."

Technically, 개 is neither gae nor kae.

I suggest not to focus on romanization too much. Romanization is great to get you started, but it has its limits in reflecting the original native pronunciation perfectly.

Thanks,
Claire
Team KoreanClass101.com