ㅊ — chieut
Korean consonant · /tɕʰ/
ㅊ is /tɕʰ/ — the ch in cheese, with a strong puff of air. It appears in 20 cells of the syllable chart, 15 of which have audio you can play here. 16 of the 568 words in the dictionary behind this site contain it.
| Name | chieut (치읓) |
|---|---|
| Sound | /tɕʰ/ |
| Romanized | ch at the start, t at the end |
| Hear it | Recorded by a native Korean speaker |
ㅊ in the syllable chart
9 cells have their own recording, 6 borrow one from an identically pronounced syllable, and 5 have none yet.
Where the reading differs from the spelling
- 챠 is read [차] and romanized cha.
- 쳐 is read [처] and romanized cheo.
- 쵸 is read [초] and romanized cho.
- 츄 is read [추] and romanized chu.
- 챼 is read [채] and romanized chae.
- 쳬 is read [체] and romanized che.
- 최 is read [최/췌] and romanized choe.
- 츼 is read [치] and romanized chui.
See the articles that decide this.
Letters it gets confused with
ㅈ · ㅊ · ㅉ
Same three-way split on the j sounds: ㅈ plain, ㅊ aspirated, ㅉ tense.
Words that use ㅊ
- 차tea
- 기차train
- 세차car wash
- 주차parking
- 차도roadway
- 차례turn
- 미처not yet
- 부처Buddha
Questions people ask
- How do you pronounce ㅊ? +
- ㅊ is /tɕʰ/. In English terms it is the ch in cheese, with a strong puff of air. At the start of a syllable it is romanized ch, and at the end of a syllable it is t.
- What is the name of the letter ㅊ? +
- It is called chieut (치읓). Korean consonant names are built so that the letter appears twice — once at the start of the name and once at the end — which tells you both of its positions at a glance.
- How many strokes does ㅊ have? +
- 4. They are written top to bottom and left to right, the same order used for every Korean letter.
- Why is 챠 not read the way it is written? +
- 챠 is pronounced [차]. 8 of the cells in this set read differently from how they are written. The rules page quotes the article that decides it.
- Why do some ㅊ cells play a different syllable? +
- 6 of them do. The standard defines those syllables as having the same pronunciation as another one, so rather than play nothing the cell plays that syllable's recording. Each cell names which one it borrows.