Of all the Korean sound rules, liaison (연음화) is the one you meet most — it fires in nearly every sentence, and it is the first rule worth recognizing by name. This is a short orientation, not the full treatment (that lives in the Pronunciation group). The goal here is one durable insight: liaison is how a word reveals its hidden final consonant, so the form with a particle attached teaches you more about a noun than its dictionary form ever will.
The core move, and the twist that makes it useful
The mechanical half of liaison you have already met on the resyllabification page: a batchim slides forward to onset a following vowel. The half that matters here is what that sliding restores. Before silence, many consonants neutralize — 꽃 ("flower"), which really ends in ㅊ, is pronounced [꼳] all by itself, its ㅊ flattened to a plain [t]. But attach a vowel and the true consonant leaps back to life:
이 꽃이 향기가 정말 좋아요.
i kkochi hyanggiga jeongmal joayo
This flower smells really lovely.
꽃이 is [꼬치] — the hidden ㅊ resurfaces, sharp and clear. The bare word [꼳] gave no hint of it; the particle form does.
생일이라 꽃을 한 다발 샀어요.
saengiria kkocheul han dabal sasseoyo
It's a birthday, so I bought a bouquet of flowers.
꽃을 → [꼬츨], again with the ㅊ restored. This is the payoff: you learn a noun's real ending from its particle-attached form, not from its citation form. The dictionary shape 꽃 hides the ㅊ; 꽃이 and 꽃을 hand it to you.
A few more, so the pattern sticks:
낮에 시간 괜찮으면 잠깐 봐요.
naje sigan gwaenchaneumyeon jamkkan bwayo
If you're free during the day, let's meet up for a bit.
책상 밑에 뭔가 떨어져 있어요.
chaeksang mite mwonga tteoreojeo isseoyo
There's something fallen under the desk.
부엌에서 맛있는 냄새가 나요.
bueokeseo masinneun naemsaega nayo
A delicious smell is coming from the kitchen.
낮에 → [나제], 밑에 → [미테], 부엌에서 → [부어케서]. In every case the particle's vowel restores the consonant that neutralization had hidden.
Cluster batchim hand over their hidden member too
The same restoration works on the two-letter clusters from the double-batchim page. Before a consonant only one member of a cluster is heard, but a following vowel releases the other one:
닭을 푹 삶아서 국을 끓였어요.
dalgeul puk salmaseo gugeul kkeuryeosseoyo
I simmered the chicken thoroughly and made a soup.
닭을 → [달글] (the hidden ㄱ links over), and 삶아서 → [살마서] (the hidden ㅁ of ㄻ links over). The reservoir empties into the vowel.
이 가방은 값이 꽤 나가요.
i gabangeun gapsi kkwae nagayo
This bag costs quite a lot.
값이 → [갑씨]: the ㅂ stays as the coda of 갑, the hidden ㅅ links onward and tenses. So even a word you can only half-hear in isolation gives up its full spelling the moment a particle arrives.
The one exception to flag: ㅎ drops
There is a single wrinkle worth previewing now so it doesn't surprise you: an ㅎ batchim does not link — it disappears before a vowel. Unlike every other consonant, ㅎ has no solid sound to carry over, so it simply drops out and the syllables run together.
저도 그 노래 정말 좋아요.
jeodo geu norae jeongmal joayo
I really like that song too.
가방을 선반 위에 놓을게요.
gabangeul seonban wie noeulgeyo
I'll put the bag up on the shelf.
좋아요 → [조아요], not "[조하요]"; 놓을게요 → [노을게요]. The ㅎ vanishes rather than linking. This ㅎ-before-vowel behavior has its own dedicated page — see ㅎ batchim before a vowel.
Why English speakers block it — and shouldn't
English speakers instinctively honor the written word boundary: they say the noun, insert a tiny glottal catch, then say the particle. That catch is exactly what stops liaison from happening, and it is the giveaway of a non-native reader. Korean wants the batchim to glide straight into the vowel with no seam at all.
새로 산 옷을 입고 나갔어요.
saero san oseul ipgo nagasseoyo
I put on the clothes I just bought and went out.
옷을 is one smooth [오슬] — not "ot … eul" with a pause and a neutralized [t]. Glide the ㅅ into the 을 and both the linking and the restoration happen for free.
This preview only scratches the surface: the complete rule, its behavior across word boundaries, and the way nasalization and tensification can alter or block it are all in Pronunciation → Liaison.
Common Mistakes
1. Carrying the neutralized sound into the linked form. The classic error: 꽃 is [꼳], so learners say "[꼳이]" instead of restoring the ㅊ.
❌ 꽃이
Wrong — 'kkot-i,' keeping the neutralized [t].
✅ 꽃이
kkochi
Correct — the real ㅊ comes back: [꼬치].
2. Pausing at the written word boundary. A glottal catch before the particle blocks the glide. 옷을 is seamless [오슬].
❌ 옷을
Wrong — 'ot … eul' with a catch and a neutralized [t].
✅ 옷을
oseul
Correct — one glide, ㅅ restored: [오슬].
3. Making ㅎ link like a normal consonant. ㅎ drops before a vowel; it does not slide over as an [h].
❌ 좋아요
Wrong — 'jo-ha-yo,' pronouncing an [h] that isn't there.
✅ 좋아요
joayo
Correct — the ㅎ drops: [조아요].
4. Learning a noun's ending only from its bare form. If you memorize 꽃 as "[꼳]," you'll mis-store it as ending in [t] and mispronounce every inflected form. Learn it from 꽃이 [꼬치] and you know the ㅊ is really there.
Key Takeaways
- Liaison relinks a batchim onto a following vowel and restores the true consonant that neutralization had hidden: 꽃 [꼳] → 꽃이 [꼬치], 낮 [낟] → 낮에 [나제], 부엌 [부억] → 부엌에 [부어케].
- Because particles always begin with a vowel, the particle-attached form reveals a noun's real final consonant. Learn endings from that form.
- Cluster batchim link their hidden member too: 닭을 [달글], 값이 [갑씨], 삶아서 [살마서].
- The one twist: ㅎ drops before a vowel — 좋아요 [조아요], 놓을게요 [노을게요] — it doesn't link.
- This is only the teaser; the full rule with all exceptions and cross-word behavior is in Pronunciation → Liaison.
Now practice Korean
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Korean→Related Topics
- Resyllabification 연음: When Batchim Slides OverTOPIK 1 — The single most important reading rule after learning blocks: a final consonant slides over to fill the empty onset of a following vowel, so the syllable boundaries you see on the page are not the ones you say — 한국어 is spoken [한구거], never 'han-guk-eo'.
- Why Spelling ≠ Pronunciation (Morphophonemic Hangul)TOPIK 1 — Korean spelling keeps each word-part in one constant shape and lets a small set of sound rules derive the pronunciation — so 값 is always written 값 even though it is said [갑], [갑씨], and [감] in different words. This page explains why, so the sound changes feel principled instead of arbitrary.
- The Seven Representative Sounds 대표음, MappedTOPIK 1 — The exact neutralization map: which of the 27 batchim spellings collapse to each of the seven representative sounds [k n t l m p ŋ] in isolation — organized by place of articulation, so you group by where the sound is made instead of memorizing a random list.
- Liaison 연음: Batchim Moves to the Next SyllableTOPIK 1 — The highest-frequency Korean sound rule: when a syllable ends in a batchim and the next begins with a vowel (the silent ㅇ), the final consonant slides forward to become that syllable's onset. Spelling keeps morpheme boundaries visible, but speech relinks right across them — so you glide, never pause, and a neutralized final is restored to its true value when it links.
- ㅎ Before a Vowel: The ㅎ DropsTOPIK 1 — The exception to liaison: unlike every other batchim, a final ㅎ does not link into a following vowel — it disappears, and the syllables simply run together. This is obligatory in ㅎ / ㄶ / ㅀ stems (좋아요 → [조아요], 많이 → [마니], 싫어요 → [시러요]) and it is why ㅎ-final adjectives look irregular though they are perfectly regular.