This might not be interesting to a lot of you, but as someone who studies both Korean and linguistics, I found this topic to be right up my alley.

I saw some discourse earlier on the timeline where a user asked how people who couldn't 'roll' their r's pronounced the word arirang. This of course had some people wondering what the 'r' sound really is in that word.

Here's an IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for the Korean word 아리랑 Arirang -> [a.ɾi.ɾaŋ]. In the video I linked, you can hear Jungkook say it at about the five second mark.

As you can see, there's no rolled 'r', which in IPA is represented by the upward 'r' symbol. Instead, there's this weird hook looking thing, which is known as an alveolar tap or flap. This sound is closer to the 't' or 'd' sound that you hear in words like butter (/bʌ.ɾɚ/) or ladder (/'læɾɚ/) (in American English). When performing this sound, your tongue quickly 'taps' against the alveolar ridge in your mouth (which is like that slope right behind your top row of teeth).

People who speak languages with rolled r's (such as Spanish or Italian) might mistake the alveolar tap as a trilled sound because they have very similar places of articulation, so I understand the thought process completely. Also, it's not like the trilled 'r' sound is impossible in Korean… We've heard that one clip of that guy saying Joon's stage name, and some Koreans do roll their r's in certain comedic and/or emphasized situations.

However, the two most common sounds that the ㄹ in Korean can perform are the 'l' (as a coda/final consonant) and the 'ɾ' sound (when preceding a vowel). That's why people who teach the language usually say that ㄹ can either be an 'r' or an 'l'.

  • 말 mal (word/speech) will sound more like an 'l' because the ㄹ is the coda/final consonant.
  • 사랑 sarang (love) will sound more like that 'ɾ' sound because it comes before a vowel sound.

Hope you found this interesting… if not, that's cool too. I just like to yap for fun.

edit: also why did reddit post this without half of its content??