# 쉰 (pronunciation)



## packleader

I am a beginner in Korean, I am now learning my numbers.  I was wondering why the word for fifty( 쉰 ) is pronounced as sheen?  Isnt it Romanized as swin? Where is the sh sound coming from?  I know that when the ㅅ is next to ㅣ ㅕ ㅠ ㅛ ㅑ  then it becomes sh, sheo, shu, sho, and sha,  but does that rule also go for the ㅣin the dipthong in this word?  I'm really confused.  Thanks!


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## loganK

"sh" mostly pronounced "쉬" or "슈" as usual. 
for making it easier, let's pronounce word starting from English,

She - 쉬
shoes - 슈즈
Show - 쇼(쉬오 - same pronounced 쇼 when it spoken faster)
ship / sheep - 쉽

sin, seen - 신 (same)

hope that would be helpful.


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## batmanforeve

1.
The romanization rule is just about how to write Korean words with the  roman alphabet, not about how to pronounce Korean words in English.

So it is difficult to know the actual pronunciation of words from romanized forms.

2.
In Korean, there are no distinction between s - sh and z - zh pairs.

ㅅ is floating around somewhere between s - sh and ㅈ between z-zh, depending on the situation (is it a first consonant? is it next to some vowels you mentioned above? etc.).

When you hear 신 and 쉰, it may sound very similarly (like shin or sheen).

For the Koreans, 'sin' and 'sheen' sound like 씬 and 쉰 respectively.

So you may pronounce sheen as 쉰.

3.
Actually, ㅟ is not a diphthong. It is a monophthong like ü in German or u in French, though the younger generation tends to pronounce it like /wi/.

So the rule you mentioned doesn't go with 쉰.

Anyway if you pronounce 'swin', it may sound like 쒼 with a monophthong or 수인 with a dipthong, a little bit different from 쉰.


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