How to check your Korean pronunciation, batchim and sound changes included

The converter on this page runs in your browser. Converting is free and unlimited, with no account and no microphone.

Recording yourself is free, up to a daily number of scored takes, for any Korean text up to 120 characters. You get a 0–100 score for the whole take, for each word and for each sound, and the weakest sound is named.

Korean is scored jamo by jamo against the way the text is actually said: 옷이 is judged as [오시], so linking and assimilation are part of the check.

TonePerfect does not tell you which sound it heard instead, does not score intonation and does not give a TOPIK level.

The converter applies the standard pronunciation rules (표준 발음법) that follow from spelling. Rules that depend on meaning are not applied, and words are converted one at a time.

TonePerfect scores pronunciation in 8 languages: Korean, Mandarin Chinese, English, Spanish, French, German, Russian and Japanese.

1. Type or paste the word or sentence you want to say into the box above. Read the line in brackets: that is how it is said. Under it, each change is listed with its rule.

2. Press Listen to hear it in your device's Korean voice, and notice where the sounds join across syllables.

3. Press Record myself and read the normal spelling aloud, the way the brackets show. Keep the phone close and the room quiet.

4. Look at the lowest-scoring sound. If it sits on a batchim or on a sound that changed, say that word alone a few times, then record the whole sentence again.

5. Check one rule on purpose: record 국물 once as spelled, [국물], and once as said, [궁물], and compare the score on the first syllable. Do the same with 같이 as [가티] and [가치].

A batchim (받침) is the consonant written at the bottom of a syllable. Before a consonant or at the end of a word, only seven sounds survive, and they are stopped, not released: no puff of air and no little vowel after them. Before a vowel, the batchim moves onto the next syllable instead (see linking below). Double batchim (겹받침) keep one of their two letters before a consonant and both before a vowel (읽어 [일거]).

These are the rules the converter names. Each one happens at the boundary between two syllables, inside a word, and each one is part of standard pronunciation, in careful speech as well as fast speech.

Some changes depend on what a word means or how it is built, not on its letters. Sino-Korean words with ㄹ before ㄷ, ㅅ or ㅈ tense the second sound (갈등 [갈뜽]), and verb stems ending in ㄴ or ㅁ tense the ending (신고 [신꼬] as a verb). The converter does not guess these; it adds the ㄴ of compounds and a few other word-specific changes only for a short list of common words. Check such words in a Korean dictionary, which prints the standard pronunciation in square brackets.

Words are converted one at a time, so linking across a space is not shown. In real speech short phrases run together; the audio is the better guide there. For the reasons behind each rule, read the guide to Korean sound-change rules and the guide to batchim.

A dictionary gives you the right pronunciation of one word at a time, but it does not listen to you. Text-to-speech, such as a translator's Listen button, lets you hear a sentence, but you are the judge of whether you matched it. A teacher or tutor hears everything, including intonation, and can explain it, but only during lessons. A scored recording sits between them: it listens to you every time, sound by sound, and tells you where to look. For a quick overall read, try the five-word Korean accent test; to score any text, use the Korean practice page.