외 — oe
pronounced [외/웨]
외 is written with ㅇ and ㅚ, but the standard reads it [외/웨] — not the way it is spelled. It is romanized oe. You can hear it below, recorded by a native Korean speaker.
Frequency: common — it appears at or above the median frequency in the teaching material behind this site. The boundary is the median of the cells that appear at all, which works out at 21 occurrences.
The rules that decide this
Standard Korean Pronunciation, Article 4, Note
[Note] ㅚ and ㅟ may also be pronounced as diphthongs.
[붙임] 'ㅚ, ㅟ'는 이중 모음으로 발음할 수 있다.
Gives every ㅚ syllable a second, permitted reading — 괴 is [괴] or [궤].
All the rules this site follows
The two letters
ㅇ (ieung)
silent before a vowel, /ŋ/ in final position
no sound at the start of a syllable; the ng in sing at the end
Words containing 외
- 외국인foreigner
- 외톨이loner
- 외할머니maternal grandmother
Nearby in the chart
Questions people ask
- How do you pronounce 외? +
- 외 is read [외/웨], not the way it is spelled. It is romanized oe.