ㅅ — siot
Korean consonant · /s/, [ɕ] before i and y-vowels
ㅅ is /s/, [ɕ] before i and y-vowels — the s in sea; closer to sh before ㅣ and ㅑ ㅕ ㅛ ㅠ. It appears in 20 cells of the syllable chart, 13 of which have audio you can play here.
82 of the 568 words in the dictionary behind this site contain ㅅ — 56% of the bar the most common letter would fill.
| Name | siot (시옷) |
|---|---|
| Sound | /s/, [ɕ] before i and y-vowels |
| Romanized | s at the start, t at the end |
| Hear it | Recorded by a native Korean speaker |
ㅅ in the syllable chart
13 of 20 cells have audio — 11 with their own recording, 2 borrowing one from an identically pronounced syllable. 7 have none yet.
Where the reading differs from the spelling
- 셰 is read [셰/세] and romanized sye.
- 쇠 is read [쇠/쉐] and romanized soe.
- 싀 is read [시] and romanized sui.
See the articles that decide this.
Letters it gets confused with
- /s/, [ɕ] before i and y-vowels
- /s͈/
ㅆ is the tense counterpart of ㅅ — a sharper, longer hiss with more tension in the throat. Korean has no plain-versus-voiced s pair the way English has s and z.
Words that use ㅅ
사람
person
사막
desert
사자
lion
의사
doctor
비서
secretary
- 사요buy
- 사진photo
- 서른thirty
Questions people ask
- How do you pronounce ㅅ? +
- ㅅ is /s/, [ɕ] before i and y-vowels. In English terms it is the s in sea; closer to sh before ㅣ and ㅑ ㅕ ㅛ ㅠ. At the start of a syllable it is romanized s, and at the end of a syllable it is t.
- What is the name of the letter ㅅ? +
- It is called siot (시옷). 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 ㅅ have? +
- 2. They are written top to bottom and left to right, the same order used for every Korean letter.
- Why is 셰 not read the way it is written? +
- 셰 is pronounced [셰/세]. 3 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 ㅅ cells play a different syllable? +
- 2 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.