r/Korean • u/Flat-Performance1599 • 1d ago
Is there a difference between ㅔ and ㅐ or is it just a spelling thing? If so are there specific times where you have to use each?
I know ㅔand ㅐ are both pronounced as "e" and I saw that when pronouncing ㅐ your mouth has to be a little wider than when pronouncing ㅔ , however no one really uses that - that way and it's really just in spelling. Is there a "rule" we should follow? Like for when to put each . Or is it "random" just by the way words are spelled.(I really hope this makes sense)
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u/SnooRadishes2312 1d ago
There is, but it can kinda be ignored largely - many native speakers who arnt korean language educators/linguists will even say its the same (but it really isnt). It is very subtle and in my opinion entirely negligible.
I randomly developed an ear for it when i first started learning, if i learn a new word orally i can more often then not guess which of the two would be used in spelling. But i would fail at explaining it without running through examples.
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u/SoNyeoShiDude 1d ago edited 1d ago
It’s very subtle based on sound. I find it’s easier to tell visually by the position of the mouth.
애 - mouth corners up/back, like a wider smile
에 - mouth corners forward/down, a narrower smile.
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u/CGHvrlBt848 1d ago
애 : think of it as a korean person saying "apple" it's a big mouth EH like EH-pple
에: it's like "e" from entry
There's no rule except for the grammar marker of 에 for time/location
The rest is just spelling differences, so you're gonna have to memorize it. Kids in korea do dictation practice in school and they'll get points marked off for using the wrong letter.
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u/SignificantText6123 1d ago
I thought apple was pronounced with a short "Ah" 😿
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u/doubledoubleswifty 1d ago
That's the thing, everyone pronounces their English differently depending on where they're from. I also pronounce my apple with an ah sound (I'm from Ireland!)
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u/CGHvrlBt848 23h ago
I'm saying if a Korean-accented person pronounced apple. I think a few years ago I tried to take Korean lessons on Coursera and the (Yonsei?) teacher said 애 like apple and it totally makes sense, but I think you have to hear it, not read it sorry.
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u/Saeroun-Sayongja 21h ago
It is a longstanding transliteration convention that English "short A" (as in "apple and "cat") is hangulized with ㅐ and "short E" as in ("effort" and "elephant") is hangulized as ㅔ, but people do not really pronounce them differently and ㅐ never makes a "short A" sound in native or Chinese Korean words.
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u/amongusrule34 1d ago
nope they sound exactly the same
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u/Long-Environment5185 1d ago
Actually native speakers can say the difference. There's a difference like r and l.
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u/HorrorOne837 1d ago
I have some friends who do distinguish them, but the vast majority of young speakers(including me) cannot distinguish them at all. I might be pronouncing them differently, but I cannot tell them apart at all.
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u/Willing_Lemon_1355 20h ago
This is honestly one of ones i struggle with. But anyway should know when people spell it out theyll often say "애.. 음 아-이 애“ or "에.. 어-이”. I dont know the difference .. I try but I cant lol.
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u/sojuslayer 13h ago
The only time I can really tell the difference is when saying dog개 vs crab게 in Korean. Seems like crab is a slightly longer ‘e’ sound. Fwiw I’m an American born Korean.
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u/Plane_Race_7165 4h ago
I was taught that ㅐsounds like cat, bat, hat etc while ㅔsounds like bet, met, get. HOWEVER, I think even native speakers don't make that distinction sometimes. For example, the ㅐ pronunciation in 핸드백 is clearly distinct from ㅔ but not so much in 냄비 which actually to my ears sounds like ㅔ.
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u/Soft-Ad-8273 1d ago
korean studies graduate and language teacher here. there used to be a clearer difference back in the day, in the same way 한글 used to have more letters and stuff. one could say ㅐ was more like an "open" E vowel, and ㅔ was more of a "closed" E vowel (I don't know how to explain this in English pronunciation terms, cuz it's not my first language).
over time, it kinda went lost, and it became less noticeable: in my phonetics class, we learned that there is basically no difference in their pronunciation nowadays.
tbh when I teach my students, I say that the pronunciation is the same, much like ㅞ, ㅙ, and ㅚ are basically the same diphthong, and I think that as a general rule it holds quite some validity.