The Letter Hieut

Watch The Lesson: https://youtu.be/El6LlIAuNTI
This is a bonus lesson on pronunciation. It's a lot of review, but it's all from the perspective of the Koren letter "H". The Korean letter "H" is actually ONE OF THE MOST WEIRD & WONDERFUL letters in the Korean alphabet, and I thought it would be appropriate to draw attention to it in its own special video!
First of all, it's not really called "H". I like to use the English name of the Roman equivalent of the Korean letters. It makes things more simple when you are learning. That's my philosophy. But, the true name of the letter "H" is 히읗 hi-eut.
OK, seems as though I have a minor correction /clarification to make already. (I'm so glad I decided to make this video.) I taught you that when in the batchim this letter is silent. But, looking at the word 히읗, and how to pronounce it, it is clear that that is not always the case. You see, the letter "H" often mixes with the next consonant in the word and thus is not pronounced. But! in these rare instances when ㅎ comes at the end of a word it sounds like "T". Remember we had a list of six letters that sound like "T" in the Batchim: T,D,CH,J,S,SS? Well now we add a 7th, but with a VERY IMPORTANT footnote *only at the end of word. And for all you people named Matt out there you now have 7 different ways to spell your name!

So, here's something I have realized about the the letter hi-eut. Basically, it is rarely pronounced.
It is not pronounced when:
-in the batchim (unless it is at the end of  a word-WHICH, LIKE I SAID, IS RARE)
-if the preceding block ends in any consonant that has an aspirated partner, or is modified in the batchim. That is to say any block ending in a ksound , tsound, or psound (remember the aspiration rule? Well it actually goes even further. I'll explain in a minute)
-when it is part of a consonant pair. (no matter whether the next chartacter begins with a nothing consonant or not.)

...however it is pronounced as H if:
-it is at the beginning of a word
-the preceding block has only two letters
-preceding block ends inㅇ,ㅁ,ㄴ,orㄹ (But even then the "H" sound is often omitted in speech)
Technically, you are supposed to say the "H" sound when your preceding consonant is one of the ones which is not modified when written in the batchim, but when people speak at regular speed they often neglect to pronounce the hi-eut. FOR EXAMPLE the word hello: an-nyeong-ha-se-yo is often said an-nyeong-a-seyo. If you ask a Korean to break it down and teach it to you syllable by syllable they will always say the "H" sound an-nyeong-ha-se-yo. But, in practice, when they are greeting someone, they often omit the "H" sound an-nyeong-a-se-yo.

Generally speaking, in the cases where hi-eut is in the initial position of a character block in the middle of a word it behaves a lot like the 'nothing' consonant.  The preceding consonant will come in and take its spot. BUT, unlike with the nothing consonant, the preceding letter maintains its batchim pronunciation if it has one.

Like I was saying a moment ago, hi-eut is silent when preceded by any consonant which has an aspirated partner, or is modified in the  batchim. That means it is definately silent when preceded by P,T, or K sounds and usually not pronounced when preceded by ㅁ,ㄴ,ㄹ, and ㅇ. even though technically it is meant to be pronounced.

Another thing that is unique to hi-eut is how it behaves when it precedes a block that begins with a nothing consonant. Usually, the consonant at the end of the leading character block moves into the place where the nothing consonant is, and is pronounced with regular pronunciation, not batchim pronuncition. The hi-eut, however does not do this. It just remains silent. For example: this word is jo-a 좋아, not jo-ha, or jot-a.

Now, let's think back and remember the re-inforcement or tensification rule. That is when you have a p, t , or k sound in the batchim followed by one of the 5 letters which can be doubled at the beginning of the next syllable, and the p, t, or k sound causes those letters to be pronounced as if they actully were doubled. Well... although hieut does sometimes make a t sound in the batchim, when it is followed by one of these 5 consonants it does not. So, it will not induce reinforcement/tensification, usually. However, as I said at the start, hi-eut is a wierd and wonderful letter so it does induce reinforcement/tensification with the letter ㅅ and only the letter ㅅ.

AND NOW!
Here's a new and interesting rule called palatization. This occurs when you have a character block with a letter that makes a "T" sound in the batchim and the next syllable is 히. That's hieut plus "eee". No other vowel, but "eee". And when you have this combination "T" sound plus 히 it comes together, and it sounds like "chi". It kinda blends together. Thats palatization.
Palatization can also happen with the nothing consonant rather than the hieut.
The letter ㅌ plus the nothing consonant and "eee" 이 turns into "chi"
and
the letter ㄷ plus the nothing consonant and "eee" 이 turns into "ji"

So, that was some good review plus some new stuff. Like always, I will try my best to remind you of these pronunciation rules as we encounter them in future lessons.
Try playing my game. It's called: HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE THE HI-EUT? Answers are in the comments section.
Thank you for studying with me.

Watch The Lesson: https://youtu.be/El6LlIAuNTI