The seven batchim sounds
Korean has many consonant letters, but at the end of a syllable they are pronounced as only seven sounds: ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㄹ, ㅁ, ㅂ and ㅇ. Learn which letters fall into each group and most reading surprises disappear.
Last updated: July 2026
The core idea
A batchim is not fully released, so fine distinctions between letters get lost. An aspirated ㅋ, a tense ㄲ and a plain ㄱ all sound the same when they end a syllable. Linguists call the seven surviving sounds the representative sounds. Three of them (ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ) are stops that soak up many letters, and four (ㄴ, ㄹ, ㅁ, ㅇ) mostly keep their own sound.
The full map
Each row shows a final sound, the letters that produce it, and an example word with its pronunciation.
| Sound | Letters that become it | Example |
|---|---|---|
| [ㄱ] k | ㄱ, ㅋ, ㄲ, ㄳ, ㄺ | 부엌 → [부억] |
| [ㄴ] n | ㄴ, ㄵ, ㄶ | 산 → [산] |
| [ㄷ] t | ㄷ, ㅌ, ㅅ, ㅆ, ㅈ, ㅊ, ㅎ | 옷 → [옫] |
| [ㄹ] l | ㄹ, ㄼ, ㄽ, ㄾ, ㅀ | 물 → [물] |
| [ㅁ] m | ㅁ, ㄻ | 밤 → [밤] |
| [ㅂ] p | ㅂ, ㅍ, ㄿ, ㅄ | 앞 → [압] |
| [ㅇ] ng | ㅇ | 강 → [강] |
The tricky groups
The two groups that cause the most mistakes are ㄱ and ㄷ.
The [ㄷ] group is the largest. Seven different letters (ㄷ, ㅌ, ㅅ, ㅆ, ㅈ, ㅊ, ㅎ) all become a stopped t. So 꽃 sounds like [꼳], 낮 sounds like [낟], and 밭 sounds like [받]. If you remember just one rule, remember that ㅅ and ㅊ at the end are t, not s or ch.
The [ㄱ] group hides an aspirated and a tense letter: ㅋ and ㄲ both flatten to a plain k, so 부엌 is [부억] and 밖 is [박]. The four sonorants ㄴ, ㄹ, ㅁ, ㅇ are the easy ones, because they keep their own sound in final position.
Notice that several clusters (ㄳ, ㄺ, ㄼ, ㅄ) appear in this table too. Those double batchim follow their own selection rule, covered in double batchim rules.
Practice it
Recognizing the seven sounds on sight is a matter of repetition. The batchim practice quiz drills exactly this in its "Final consonant sounds" mode: it shows a word and asks which of the sounds its batchim makes, then confirms with the real pronunciation.