ㅆ — ssangsiot
Korean consonant · /s͈/
ㅆ is /s͈/ — a tense, sharper s — the hiss is longer and the throat tighter. It appears in 20 cells of the syllable chart, 10 of which have audio you can play here.
6 of the 568 words in the dictionary behind this site contain ㅆ — 4% of the bar the most common letter would fill.
| Name | ssangsiot (쌍시옷) |
|---|---|
| Sound | /s͈/ |
| Romanized | ss at the start, t at the end |
| Hear it | Recorded by a native Korean speaker |
ㅆ in the syllable chart
10 of 20 cells have audio — 8 with their own recording, 2 borrowing one from an identically pronounced syllable. 10 have none yet.
Where the reading differs from the spelling
- 쎼 is read [쎼/쎄] and romanized ssye.
- 쐬 is read [쐬/쒜] and romanized ssoe.
- 씌 is read [씨] and romanized ssui.
See the articles that decide this.
Letters it gets confused with
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 ㅆ
이쑤시개
toothpick
띄어쓰기
word spacing
- 싸요cheap
- 비싸요expensive
- 글씨handwriting
- 날씨weather
Questions people ask
- How do you pronounce ㅆ? +
- ㅆ is /s͈/. In English terms it is a tense, sharper s — the hiss is longer and the throat tighter. At the start of a syllable it is romanized ss, and at the end of a syllable it is t.
- What is the name of the letter ㅆ? +
- It is called ssangsiot (쌍시옷). 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 ㅆ have? +
- 4. They are written top to bottom and left to right, the same order used for every Korean letter.
- Why is 쎼 not read the way it is written? +
- 쎼 is pronounced [쎼/쎄]. 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 ㅆ 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.