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Pronunciation of sounds in Mandarin and Korean?
I've recently begun studying Mandarin Chinese and Korean.
Now obviously there are many sounds in each language that are not in English, but I'm curious about similarities between sounds in these two languages.
One sound (two sounds?) in particular has caught my attention. They both seem to be similar in some ways to English "s" but with the tip of the tongue touching the bottom teeth. So here is my question: are the sounds represented by "x" in pinyin and by ㅅ in hangeul the same sound?
1 Answer
- ?Lv 510 years agoFavorite Answer
The sound you're talking about is represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [ɕ]. Most English speakers will hear this sound as closer to English SH than English S, but whatever floats your boat. In any case it's obviously different from both.
Yes, [ɕ] is used in both Mandarin and Korean and is represented by X and ㅅ. Keep in mind that in Korean, ㅅ= [ɕ] only some of the time. ㅅ= [ɕ] before the vowel ㅣ and any of the Y vowels (ㅑ, ㅕ, ㅛ, etc.). ㅅ is pronounced the same as an English S in any other context.
