Korean–English

The overlay of the L1 consonant phonemes onto the target English inventory results in the following:

Other Korean phonemes are /p^h, p′, t^h, t′, k^h, k′, tʃ^h, tʃ′, s′/.

Target phonemes that are completely missing in L1 include /f, v, θ, ð, ʤ/, and they are rendered as [p, b, t, d, tʃ] respectively in target English words. Although /b, d, g/ are not in the Korean phonemic inventory, [b, d, g] are present as allophones of /p, t, k/ between two voiced sounds. As a result, we expect difficulties in English /b, d, g/ targets when they are not in between two voiced sounds (e.g. book, cab, dog). Equally problematic are the /p, t, k/ targets when between two voiced sounds, as exemplified in the following erroneous productions: apart [əbɑɹ̣t], attack [ədæk], mocha [mogə].

[z] and [ʃ] exist in Korean as allophones of /s/. We repeat the distributional requirements here for convenience:

Consequently, we expect the target sea shells [si ʃεlz] to be rendered as [ʃi sεls].

Liquids present both phonemic and phonetic problems. The Korean r-sound is a flap and is in complementary distribution with the lateral; [ɾ] occurs intervocalically and [l] elsewhere, thus giving rise to failures to distinguish between target pairs such as feeling– fearing, soul– sore.

The mismatches between the vowel systems of L1 and L2 result in the following under-differentiations:

Other Korean vowels are /y, ø, ա/.

The syllable structure of Korean, which is described as (C) V (C) (C), is much simpler than that of English. Although the above formulation allows double codas, the actual combinations are very limited. As a result, the wide variety of double and triple onsets and codas in target English words are broken up by vowel insertions.

Korean stress patterns are quite different from those of English, mainly manifested as the rise in pitch on the initial syllable of the word or phrase. In addition to the mismatches in stress, Korean, as a typical syllable-timed language, does not have vowel reductions and this results in a clearly different rhythm.

The following summarizes the major trouble spots:

• missing target phonemes: /f, v, θ, ð, ʤ/;

• sounds existing as allophones;

• salient phonetic differences;

• insufficient separation of target vowel contrasts;

• onset and coda clusters;

• stress;

• rhythm.