Pronunciation Difficulties of Korean Students

Learning English as a Second Language

Young-Ja Paik

Before we r<rise any of the questi'ons of how to teach a foreign language and what
to teach our students, there should be much more i,mportant preliminary work of finding
out the special problems of students learning a new set of language .habits against the
background of their different native language habits, A teacher very often will be faced
with the need to diagnose quickly and accurately the problems troubling his students. A
well trained teacher not only knows the particular pattern which troubles the student but
also what substitution he can make which might lead to another solution to a baffling
situation.
When a speaker of a second language gets to be a certain age he can not easily
pronounce sounds of another language even though he has no definite speech impediment.
What is even more surprising to the' language teachers is that he cannot easily hear
language sounds other than those of his native language even though he suffers no hear-
ing defects. This shows that in the process of learning a foreign language one tends to
transfer one's entire native language system. He tends to transfer to the language he is
learning, his phonomes, his stress and rhythm patterns, his intonation patterns and their
interaction with other phonemes.
Thus one finds it simpler to learn the sound system of a foreign language that is
physically similar to those of the native language. o~ the other hand , one finds it extreme-
ly difficult to learn the sounds that are not similar to those of his own language, that
set differently or that are differently distributed. It is important for the English teacher
to seek to isolate these problems and to provide some systematic solutions to them.
When a student finds no phoneme in his native language which can be transferred to
English he will not be able to produce the phoneme readily. Very often he will substitute
some other phoneme from his native stock. In addition, he will have trouble hearing as
well as producing the new phoneme.
In comparing the sound system of English with' that of Korean, we find that
Korean does not have phonemes that may replace English 11, r, 8, 0, f, v, zl as in lilac,
road, ether, either, flower, vase, zoo respectively. A Korean speaker, therefore, will have
difficulty pronouncing and hearing these phonemes. We may consider these phonemes as
pronunciation problems of Korean students learning English.

177
 178

In order to have his students overcome these problems a language teacher should
first attempt to give comparative exercises. A well trained teacher will be aware of what
kind of substitutions his students are going to make from their own native language. If 101
is the problem phoneme, most likely a Korean student will substitute Idl in its place. We
found they usually substitute Isl for 18/, Irl for Il l, Ih/ for If I, Ibl for lvi , jjj or
Isl for Izl and so on. Difficulty in hearing the English contrasts between III and Irl
is, by actual computation of test data, one of the most stubborn hearing and production
difficulties for Korean speakers. In this case the contrast of two different sounds (the
sound they have to learn and the possible substitution) should be thoroughly practiced in
minimal pairs as in the following examples.

Contrast between I II and Irl

light right
lord roared
lied ride
lead read
low row

Contrast between Ihw I and I fI

wheel feel
wheat feet
white fight
whine fine
while file

Contrast between If I and I pI

file pile
feel peel
fine pme
fan pan
fickle pickle
Contrast between Ibl and Ivl
base vase
bail veil
beer veer
bent vent
best vest

Contrast between Izl and Isl (or /jl)

zoo Sue
 Pronunciation Difficulties 179

zeal seal
ZIpper slipper
zone Sampson
czar jar

Contrast of I f I Ivl I bl
face vase base
fail vale bale
fat vat bat
fend vend bend
fox vox box

Contrast between III and I r I as final sound

pill peer
tell tear
fill fear
ill ear
bell bear

Contrast between 11/ and Irl as in consonant cluster

bleed breed
clown crown
glass grass
glean green
play pray

In Korean language the following vowel contrasts are not distinguishing features
and are thus difficult for the students to differentiate. Here again we can give the mini-
mal pair exercise.

Contrast between li: I and lil

sheep ship
heat hit
beat bit
leap lip
heed hid

Contrast between l u: I and l ul

pool pull
shooed should
Luke look ·
 180

suit soot
wooed would

Contrast between /a/ and /'J/

cot caught
pa paw
sot sought
not nought
cock caulk

This determining of the distinctive sounds that differ is only the first step (although
an important one) and can be achieved quickly. And we also found that the first stage
of comparison of full phonemes and the contrastive exercise do not give us the complete
picture of the pronunciation difficulties the students are involved in. Many of us at this
point may ask if the phonemes we do not have in our language are the only problem
areas. What if the phonemes which we have tentatively accepted as 'similar' have pho-
netically different vatiants? In most cases the problem does not only lie in the total
absence of a phoneme in Korean but also in the problem involving variants of phonemes.
For example in comparing Korean with English, when first checking English / d/ we ten-
tatively say that Korean has a similar phoneme / d/ and thus we do not consider this as
a problem. But on closer examination we find Korean /d/ has two different variants as in
the case of dari 'bridge' and dod da 'rise' . Therefore Korean students have a tendency
to use the stop variants of Korean /d/ (in the case of dod da ) when they produce
English / d/ in had done. In the problem just discussed we have to come to the same
conclusion that English / d/ and the stop variant of Korean / d/ are different, but their
structural interpretation would be the same, that is, they would both be interpreted as
the phoneme /d/.
This leads to another important question. Are the phonemes and their variants
similarly distributed in both languages? An experienced teacher knows very well that even
when the native language has a similar phoneme and the variants are similar, if it does
not occur in the same position as in th e nati ve language, the student will have trouble
producing and hearing it in the position in which it does occur in English. By following
through on this matter of the distribution of each phoneme we could eventually come up
with all the sequence of phonemes that might cause difficulty. At first glance the simplest
way to analyze sequence problems in pronunciation would ~eem to . be listening to a se-
quence in English and checking to see if it occurs in Korean. If it occurs in Korean, it
will presumably not be a problem as sequence; if it does not occur in Korean, it will
constitute a problem for Korean speakers learning English. From this fact arises the im-
portance of finding the 'position' in which the distinctive phoneme can occur, and the
clusters which they may form. As a sequence problem we observe that English has a
 Pronunciation Difficulties 181

large number of consonant clusters preceding final pause or internal open juncture. It is
obvious that we must consider the distribution positions of sound clusters in order to
analyze the pronunciation problems. Final consonant clusters in English are troublesome
to many non-English speakers. Words with the final cluster / __ rd/ are frequent in
English but nonexistent in Korean. However, for Korean students initial consonant clusters
are sometimes more troublesome than the final ones. In Korean, consonant clusters never
occur initially in any word as they frequently do in English. It is hard for Korean spea-
kers to produce them in that position. They frequently say /s;JtAdi/ instead of saying
/stAdi/ 'study'. (In any word in Korean, the initial consonant is always followed by a
vowel sound.) In analysing the sequence problems and testing them 1 found Dr. Charles
Fries' list of clusters most helpful. In his book, Teaching and Learning English as a
Foreign Language he made 39 initial or pre-vocal clusters.

Consonant Clusters in Initial Position

/ pr/ pray, press, prop, pry / £1/ flow, flay, flee, fly
/tr/ tray, tree, true, try IgI! glow, glue, glide, glass
Ifr/ fray, free, fruit, fry jdw/ dwell, dwarf, dwindle
/gr/ gray, grass, grew, greet /kw / quick, quack, quake, quell
/dr/ dray, drew, drip, dry Itwl twine, twig, tweed, twelve
/krl crew, crow, creed, cry I sw I swine, swear, swell, swim
lorl through, throw, thread Ihw I whine, where, why which
Ibrl brew, broad, bread, brown lowl thwart, thwack
Ilr/ shred, shrink, shriek, shrewd ;£y/ feud, few, fury, fuse
Ist/ stay, stem, stone, stilI /ky / cute, cube, cure, cue
Isp/ span, spend, spin, spoil /my / mute, music, mule, mural
/sml small, smoke, smack, smear /bYI beauty, bugle, bureau, butte
/sk/ skin, scare score, sky Ipy / pure, putrid, pupil, punny
/sn/ snow, snare, sneeze, snail /vy/ view
Isf/ sphere, sphinx, sphenoid, sphincter Ihy / hue, huge, human, humus
Iblj blow, blue, bleed, black Istrl stray, string, straw, strap
Iplj play, plow, plea, ply Iskr/ screw, scroll, scratch
IkI! clay, claw, clue, close Isprl spray, spread, sprawl
Isl/ slay, slow, sleep, sly IspI! splash, spleen, split
Iskwl square, squint, squat
In addition to the sequence problems, there is the problem of spelling pronunciation.
For instance, in Korean phoneme followed by a certain phoneme changes entirely in
reading and becomes a different phoneme. For instance, Korean phonemes /g/, /d/, Ipl
followed by 1nl, Ill, Im/, have a tendency to become similar to the phoneme followed
by, and so Ig/ becomes 10/, Idl to 1nl, Ip/ to Iml like in the following examples.
 182

.;;- ~ /k uk mulj-/kuo mulj .ljl-q,j r /bu ak mun/-/bu ao mun/

"* ~ 4 j ut nwn da/-/un nwn da/ >lJ ~ / bap mulj-/bam mulj
7f1'~ 4 /kak nwn da/ - / kao nwn da/ ~~ 4 / dat nwn da/-/dan nwn da/
*T:-4 / but nwn da/-/bun nwn da/
Common Mispronunciation
cook meal /kuk mi:Ij-/kuo mi:l/
quick money /kwik mani/ - /kwio manii
quick nap /kwik nrep/-/kwio nrep/
check number /tlek namba-/tleo namba/
back mirror ./brek mira/-/breo mira/
back Iow /brek lou/ - /breo lou/

Many Korean students have difficulty producing combinations such as:

right night straight means

light night cut mirror
good night cut me loose
bright night put Mike
right near met me
right next up right
let me mop near
lot more cup list
map nail tramp line
lamp light

The above observation is not limited to pronunciation matters, but applies to

vocabulary and grammatical matters as well. Sometimes the above irregularities of Korean
pronunciation help Korean students to understand easily the problems of spelling pronun-
ciation. An English teacher at this point will be able to give a word-pair recognition
practice and try to eliminate the students' difficulty. Here is a copy of the word-pair
recognition test I use at the beginning of the semester and at the end of the semester.
T ell the students that in each question they are given a pair of phrases. Sometimes both
phrases are exactly the same; sometimes they are different. If the two phrases are the
same, have them circle the letter S. If the two phrases are different, have them circle
the letter D. The teacher should read the pair only twice. Each student should have a
numbered piece of paper with S, D on them. The teacher should read the pairs as rapidly
and as accurately as possible.

1. hold tight hold right

2. want more wants more
3. wait more wait longer
 Pronunciation Difficulties 183

4. empty pen empty pan

5. let me led me
6. lamp light lamp light
7. straight means state means
8. met me let me
9. right next right next
10. live alone leave alone
1l. not yet not wet
12. quick trip quick trip
13. bus stop bus stop
14. fresh paint fresh paint
15. up right up light
16. full up pull up
17. walk out watch out
18. take mine take time
19. city streets city streets
20. hear them fear them
2l. quick money kick money
22. lot more -none more
23. right night light night
24. pat Mike pat mine
25. call later call later
26. quiet night quite night
27. fall down call down
28. thick fog thick log
29. good place good plays
30. cup list come listen .
3l. never ready never ready
32. gets mail get small
33. quick nap king nap
34. mop near mom near
35. talk softly walk softly
36. strong rope strong rope
37. fire laws fire loss
38. more shirts wore shirts
39. pretty soon pretty moon
40. loud noise loud noise
4l. deaf man dead man
42. red rose rose red
 184 ~~liFf~ i:l!J13W ~ 2 ~

43. so soon go soon

44. really nice really nice
45. check number check number
46. back low back low
47. too early too early
48. make up may cut
49. walk fast walk past
50. fast train last train

After giving this kind of word recognition test you might 'come up with a complete
list of the most acute problems Korean students are up against. After the list is ready
yo u may drill your students. In the second language, try to use these phrases in the
sentence structures. Putting phrases into sentence structures helps the students to recognize
th eir problems more easily because of the distribution.
If new pronunciation habits are to function in the actual speech of students, prac-
tice can not be limited to isolated words and phrases. Another observation must be made
at this time. To deal adequately with the sounds of English we have to understand the
problems of producing the significant sound units in their normal contexts of pitch sequen-
ces and rhythmic stresses. The problems of stress and rhythm is of importance not
only because stress is phonemic but also because stress and rhythm usually give consider-
able pressure on other matters of pronunciation.
Some linguists say that English has four significant degrees of stress or five while
others seem not to use secondary stress at all but insist on a system of 3-stress system
that includes weak, primary, and sentence stresses instead.
Every English word has at least one stre;sed syllable. A stressed syllable is pro-
nounced in such a way that it is more prominent than an unstressed syllable. We stress a
syllable by saying it louder, that is, we us ually utter it with more volume and with a
higher pitch than we do the surrounding syllables. Vowels in stressed syllables are usually
longer than vowels in unstressed syllables. Sometimes a word has secondary stress. We
pronounce the syllable that bears a secondary stress with a little less volume and lower
pitch than the syllable with the primary stress. Syllables which are not stressed (weak
stresses) are pronounced with relatively little breath . In Korean language we do have
primary stress and weak stress, though not as prominent as in English. For instance,
in chakhada 'good', blmgabda 'glad', musebda 'afraid'. (the primary stressed syllable
has been marked.) What's more important in Korean is not the levels of stress itself
but the length of a phoneme. If we do not differentiate the length of a phoneme it is
imposible to differentiate the meaning of a word. For example:

short vowel long vowel

it 'oyster' it 'tunnel'
 Pronunciation Difficulties 185

'--
~ 'eye' ~ 'snow'
01- 'horse' ~ 'language'
'"
13J- 'foot' 13J- 'bamboo screen'
~ 'night' llJ 'chestnut'
In pronouncing a long phoneme there is a tendency to slightly raise the pitch at
the end of the word. There are also many words with a long phoneme at the beginning
as in the case of ~4 'is small', ~4 'playing', tfl 4 'is warm', ~ 4 'plant', ~A 'laugh'
and %4 'help', etc ..
With this kind of language background, a Korean student may have the tendency
to use his Korean habits even in his English stress and rhythm . Since vowels in stressed
syllables in English are usually, longer than vowels in unstressed syllables, a student
might stress or forcefully pronounce an unstressed syllable. Our concern should be about
stressing the proper syllable and about not stressing the unstressed syllables. The following
are some of the words in which Korean students often misplace the stressCin alphabetical
order):

admirable instruction
afraid integrate
apostrophe machine
appetite minority
Arabic mistake
behold misfortune
benevolent obstacle
breathe organ
bracelet origin
catastrope optical
comfortable obvious
constantly periodic
contribute politics
congress preface
degree probably
democracy prosecute
develop recognition
digest realize
distribute register
effect resurrection
effort shortage
enroll success
ecstasy sophomore
 lSb ~~~~ ~131{t ~ 2!l!!f

electricity stimulation
horizon strategy
horizontal telephone
humanity terrible
image theology
interrupt total
italic volcano

In English there are also pairs of words spelled the same way, but the place of
stress on them when they are used as verbs differs from the place when they are not
used as verbs. The following pairs of words are difficult for the Korean students to dif-
ferentiate.

Non-Verb (stress 1st syllable) Verb (stress 2nd syllable)

addict addict
assay assay
concert concert
conduct conduct
conflict conflict
convert convert
decrease decrease
digest digest
escort escort
exploit exploit
extract extract
frequent frequent
import import
incline incline
increase increase
insult insult
object object
perfect perfect
permit permit
present present
produce produce
progress progress
protest protest
rebel rebel
record record
refuse refuse
 Pronunciation Difficulties 187

subject subject
suspect suspect
transfer transfer

After you make a list of the stress problems of your own students, tapping IS a
useful device for teaching them to distinguish stress. Take a pencil, and knock the end
of it lightly on a table for an unstressed syllable, and knock it more forcefully for a
stressed syllable. For example, when you say people, strike once forcefully and once lightly.
For returning, strike once lightly, once forcefully and once lightly. For comfortable,
strike once forcefully and three times lightly. Try to give more time to the vowels in the
stressed syllables.
Sentence stress which is readily recognized in the contrastive position of two phrases
such as 'I said now, not next year.' in English creates no problem for the Korean stu-
dents. In Korean we often use sentences stress which gives a difference to the context of
a sentence also.
Intonation is the rising and falling of the pitch of our voice as we speak. There
are two distinct ways the pitch of our voice is used. English like Korean uses voice pitch
as part of the sentence and phrase while a tonal language uses it as part of the word. It
is very important for us to realize that our listener responds to our intonation. If we use
the wrong kind, our listener may misinterpret our intention. We know that English has
four pitch phonemes: extra high, high, medium, low which are not four fixed points but
four relative levels. The intervals may change from speaker to speaker. In Korean we do
have at least three pitch phonemes and they are applied to sentence intonation slightly
differently than in English. In the English sentence, 'He's a student', spoken with a
normal mid-pitch at the beginning, a high pitch on student and dropping to a low pitch
at the end, we hear three of the four pitches in operation. In saying the Korean sentence,
.::le ~~ 01 c~ . 'He is a student., we h ear an entirely different intonation pattern
starting with a high mid-pitch at the beginning and dropping to a low at e, a high
pitch on ~~ rendering even to 01 and dropping again to mid-pitch.
The most difficult intonation problem concerns question sentences. In Korean ques-
tion sentences we always raise our pitch at the end of the sentence, even the sentences
with the question words as 'who', 'where', 'whom' , and 'which' etc., whereas the intona-
tion is dropped at the end of the sentence in English. For example:

No problem: "i17~ .:z.. 5!l '--l? 'Did you do it? '

Problem: ~ .:z..~ '--l? 'Why did you do it?'

In this case also the problem is obvious. We should tell our students that their
intonation, for example, can signify that they are making a statement or that they are
asking a question or that they have not finished speaking . It is advisable to tell the
students to follow three general rules in their intonation at first.
 188

1. Let your voice fall to its lowest pitch at the end of statements and at the end
of questions with words like who, whose, whom, what, when, which, where,
why and how.

He' s a student.
Where is my pen?
How did you make it?
2. Let your voice rise to a high pitch at the end of a question which does not
begin with one of the question words.

Is he a student?
Did you lose' your book?
It's blue?
Going home now? (This kind of intonation pattern doesn' t exist in Korean.)

3. Let your voice stay on a middle pitch if you pause .before you have finished a
sentence.

We bought a book, a pen, and a lamp.

I didn't need them, but they looked nice.

After they have comprehended these three general rules we could give as many
example sentences on the tape as possible and have them repeat them until the intonation
pattern of English comes out of them as naturally as possible.
Every semester English teachers are confronted with the necessity of choosing a
new textbook because the text they have chosen did not foresee the students' difficulties
learning English as a second language in their own situation. Therefore a teacher very
often will be faced with the need to diagnose the problems quickly troubling his students
in order to prepare new teaching materials and also supplement inadequate materials for
his students.
Nowhere is there a more need of diagnosing students' problems than in the case of
the sound system for one has to learn to understand and produce the new language he is
learning. After identifying the sounds which cause the most difficul ty to his students, the
teacher can use several techniques to teach them . A description of the speech organs as
the sound is being produced could be made easily. A comparison with the nearest sound
in the students' native lauguage could be made as in the minimal pair practice (pp. 3-4) .
A modification of a known English sound and a diagram of the speech organs are other
techniques. Let me conclude by saying that without knowing the students' learning pro-
blems our teaching will be only time consuming and not meaningful.
 Pronunciation Difficulties 189

REFERENCES

Blount, B; G. 1974. Language, Culture and Society : A Book of Readings. Cambridge,

Mass.: Wintrop Publishers, Inc ..
Danielson, Dores. 1973. Using English. New Jersey : Prentice-Hall Inc ..
Fries, Charies C. 1945. T eaching and Learning English As a Foreign Language. Uni-
versity of Michigan Press.
Griffith, Franois. 1951. English Grammar and Composition. N. Y.: Harcourt Brace Jova ·
novich, Inc..
Harris P . David. 1966. Reading Improvement Exercises for Students of English as a Se-
cond Language. Prentice-Hall.
Hymes, Dell. 1964. Language in Culture and Society. N. Y .: A Harper International
Edition.
Lado, Robert. 1957. Liguistics Across Culture. University of Michigan Press.
\ Lado, Robert. 1964. Language T eaching. N. Y .: McGraw-HiIl, Inc ..

Department of English Language & Literature

Sogang University
Shinsu-Dong Mapo-ku
Seoul 121, Korea
( Received 30 November 1977)