Korean 101 (한국말), for beginners [p1] - Page 3

On September 02 2012 07:18 Suc wrote:

Never seen 뭐슬 before, but if I had to guess, I would say it's a kind of contraction of 무엇, which is the formal version of 뭐. 무엇 + 을 = (무 + ㅓ) + (ㅅ + 을) = 뭐슬. I guess that kind of makes sense if you were to say it fast.

I just checked Naver and they have no entries, not sure how common this construction is as I've never heard it before.

edit:



It's easy if you've done a European language or Japanese or something that people roll their r's in. For anyone new, it's just
1) If it's at the start of a word: rolled r
2) If it's at the end of a word: l
3) If two of them touch: double l
4) If it ends a character, but the next Hangeul in the next character that touches it is a ㅇ or ㅎ: rolled r.

It makes sense if you think about it, if there's an open or vowel sound, it's easy to say a rolled r, but it's easier to say an l sound before a consonant before another consonant (which every character starts with).

That's the basic gist of it, there are more advanced pronunciation rules like ㄹ + ㄴ = ㄹ + ㄹ , similar to the conversion that happens between 입니다 being pronunced im-ni-da instead of ib-ni-da. These pronunciation conversions make sense if you sound them out; it's much easier and quicker to say ㄹ ㄹ instead of ㄹ ㄴ.