# Korean stress?



## wingedfire

According to most people, it is "accentless". However, that doesn't make sense to my Mexican ears. Would someone explain? Wikipedia defined a few dialects of Korean as having a "pitch accent". I read the article, it apperently means that you need to pronounce a mora (syllable would be an approximate synonim, but I just don't find it as precise or accurate)with a higher pitch than usual, but it never explained _which_ mora would be the one you accented.

So, is the stress as arbitrary as english's? Is there a rule for it? Any way to find out based on the written word? 

For example, I pronounce "안녕하세요" like "an-NYEONG-ha-se-yo" or "an-nyeong-ha-se-YO", would that be correct? And please don't just answer this question, unless stress is random.


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## nhk9

the word that you are looking for is 억양 (intonation).

very few books cover this topic.  i came across one that talked about this topic in a japanese book, and the following can be said:

with words starting with ㅂ,ㅈ,ㄷ,ㄱ,ㅁ,ㄴ,ㅇ,ㄹ the first syllable always has a lower pitch

get a korean person to say the English name "Aiden" (에이덴)

with words starting with ㅋ,ㅌ,ㅊ,ㅍ,ㅃ,ㅉ,ㄸ,ㄲ,ㅅ,ㅎ,ㅆ, all the syllables have a higher pitch EXCEPT the last syllable.

get a korean person to say "한국", and "한국말", and you can see what I mean


in your example, with 안녕하세요, the 요 has a slightly higher pitch than the rest.


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## wingedfire

nhk9 said:


> the word that you are looking for is 억양 (intonation).
> 
> very few books cover this topic. i came across one that talked about this topic in a japanese book, and the following can be said:
> 
> with words starting with ㅂ,ㅈ,ㄷ,ㄱ,ㅁ,ㄴ,ㅇ,ㄹ the first syllable always has a lower pitch
> 
> get a korean person to say the English name "Aiden" (에이덴)
> 
> with words starting with ㅋ,ㅌ,ㅊ,ㅍ,ㅃ,ㅉ,ㄸ,ㄲ,ㅅ,ㅎ,ㅆ, all the syllables have a higher pitch EXCEPT the last syllable.
> 
> get a korean person to say "한국", and "한국말", and you can see what I mean
> 
> 
> in your example, with 안녕하세요, the 요 has a slightly higher pitch than the rest.


감사합니다. *writes down everything you said*. So, Korean is pitch-stressed? I see. So, according to your advice, "감사합니다" would have a lower pitch in the first syllable?


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## pktopp

Korean stress is very complicated, and there is not enough written about it. As a rule of thumb, put a slight stress on the first syllable of words of two syllables, and a primary stress on the first syllable and a secondary stress on the final syllable of words that comprise three syllables. 

This is a very basic rule of thumb. Korean stress shifts frequently, depending on a number of factors. For example:

Postpositions:

우체국 ("Post Office"), there is a slight stress on the first syllable.

우체국에 ("To the Post Office") there is a slight stress on both the second and fourth syllables.

으체국으로 ("Via, near, or toward the Post Office) there is a slight accent on the first and third syllables.

Vowel length based on historical factors (tones were once used in Korean):

가장 ("always") Slight accent appears on the second syllable.

가장 ("head of family") Slight accent appears on the first syllable.

A good Korean dictionary--one written in Korean, that is--will help you with vowel length. I use an electronic dictionary, but print ones are also available, such as the _Essence _국어사전.

As for the greeting 안녕하세요? I would advise you to NEVER put the stress on the "nyeong". Where should it go then? This depends. If you are saying it very casually, without much interest really in knowing how the person is, put a slight STRESS accent on the first syllable, and let the pitch of the voice drop a little bit to the end of the utterance. If you are being nice and friendly to someone, put a slight STRESS accent on the first syllable, and a rising PITCH accent on the final syllable ("안녕하세요?") is a question, after all.

In any event, Korean stress is much more subtle than English or Spanish stress.

I have been studying Korean for ten years and I wish there were an easy formula for me to tell you, but quite simply, there isn't. Korean stress shifts all over the place (since it is an agglutinative language), but if you merely put a very faint stress on the first syllable of any word, most people will understand you.

My final and best piece of advice is for you to listen to as much Korean as possible and analyze the sound patterns. Since Korean Dramas are so readily available on TV and on the Internet, there are many enjoyable resources within reach to learn this fascinating language.


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## wildsunflower

The only rule I can think of is putting a slight stress on the last syllable of a question. The standard Korean is based on the Seoul dialect, which is much more monotonous than other dialects. Too much stress can make your sentences sound harsh and rough. Not elegant, I should say. I agree with what pktopp suggested. Be subtle, but pronunciation should be clear. Unlike English, the syllable units of Korean are distinctive. Korean may sound agglutinative, but I think it is because of the lack of stressing. I don't necessarily think Korean is agglutinative. If you keep listening to Korean speaking, you should be able to find certain patterns. Also, you may also want to pay attention to the dragging sound of Korean. For example, in 안녕하세요? "요" should be dragged a bit as well as stressed.


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## nhk9

If you want to speak like them, just listen to how they speak English.  You will get an idea on when to have a higher pitch, and when to have a lower pitch.


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## Solsken07

I know this reply comes nine years late, but anyway I'll try to answer, as this thread is the first result that comes up when you search for "Korean stress accent" on Google.

Korean is a syllable-timed, pitch accent language. There is some debate over whether it actually has pitch accent or not, because in Gyeonggi dialect (Seoul region) it's not lexical, that is, it's not used to contrast words for meaning, unlike in other dialects such as southeastern Gyeongsang, where a full pitch-accent system exists.

This means *pitch* (높낮이) has a prosodic function in Seoul standard Korean (표준말): it marks the natural flow of ups and downs in speech, in a very similar fashion to *intonation* (억양). Standard Korean features a rather monotonous or flat intonation, so pitch is subtle and hard to pick by ear.

The first two replies above were partially right in that pitch tone depends on both *syllable weight* (determined by the kind of initial sound) and *syllable count*. The minimal accentual unit is not the word though, but the accentual phrase (AP), which is quite easy to tell apart because of the use of spaces in writing.

That being said, let's move on to how to predict pitch and intonation patterns in standard Korean.

Pitch tones may be *high* (H) or *low* (L):

1. *Two-syllable* APs normally show a high pitch in the first syllable, irrespective of its sounds: 부산 (Busan) = HH

2. APs with *three or more syllables* display the following pattern: (T)HLH, where (T) stands for tone. This tone (H/L) depends on the syllable contour:

a) Syllables with an initial aspirated (ㅋ,ㅌ,ㅍ,ㅊ,ㅎ), tense (ㄲ,ㄸ,ㅃ,ㅉ,ㅆ) or ㅅ consonant are heavy and carry a H tone: 한국말 (Korean language) = (H)HL

b) Syllables beginning with any other sound are light and carry a L tone: 부산에 (to Busan) = (L)HL, 우리나라 (our country) = (L)HLH

As stated before, intonation in standard Korean is rather flat, with two main patterns at the end of utterances: falling (F) in statements and rising (R) in questions. This is especially true for particles and verb endings: -가/이, -는/은, -에, -요, -다, etc.

Take for example:
-안녕하세요? (Hello) = (L)HLH(R)
-안녕히 가세요. (Goodbye) = (L)HL (L)H(F)
-알겠습니다. (All right) = (L)HLH(F)
-학교에 가다. (To go to school) = (H)HL H(F)
-A: 어디에요? (Where?) = (L)HL(R)
 B: 서울에요. (In Seoul) = (H)HL(F)

As for vowel length, it used to create minimal pairs in the past: 말 /mal/ (horse), /ma:l/ (word, language); it's been however mostly neutralized in recent decades and now found only in older speakers in Seoul.

Sources:
-한국어 음운론 (Korean Wikipedia)
-Jun, Sun-Ah, _Korean Intonational Phonology and Prosodic Transcription _(2005)
-Brown, Lucien & Yeon, Jaehoon, _The Handbook of Korean Linguistics _(2019)


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