Hanja Tips! (두음법칙)
As I study hanja more and more one thing has continuously confused me, why do certain characters have two sounds? Now you may know how Korean has pronunciation rules, but there’s actually a formal written one too, this is called 두음법칙.
If the ㄴ or ㄹ is the first character at the start of a word, it actually changes the ㄴ and ㄹ to ㅇ.
Let’s look at some examples:
If ㄹ comes before ㅏ / ㅐ / ㅗ / ㅚ / ㅜ / ㅡ
ㄹ > ㄴ 로(老) + 인(人) = 로인 > 노인 락(樂) + (원)園 = 락원 > 낙원
If ㄴ comes before ㅕ / ㅛ / ㅠ / ㅣ
ㄴ > ㅇ 녀(女) + 자(子) = 녀자 > 여자 년(年) + 세(歲) = 년세 > 연세
Therefore if ㄹ comes before ㅑ / ㅕ / ㅛ / ㅠ / ㅣ
ㄹ > ㄴ > ㅇ 력(力) + 량(量) = 력량 > 녕량 > 역량 량(良) + 심(心) = 량심 > 냠심 > 양심
This is used for Hanja so it doesn’t affect for loanwords / slang 리얼, 라멘
There is more to the rule that affects the second character in a word, but we’ll get to that later!
In the mean time, I hope this helps!
If you have questions or suggestions for comments please let me know!
