Chinese relies on tones, Cantonese relies on tone-matching, English relies on stress, Japanese relies on mora count, Korean relies on syllables and batchim. These are five sets of constraints, and none can substitute for another. ★ Korean has no lexical tones, nor a system that distinguishes word meaning by stress—— "Standard Korean does not use stress to distinguish word meaning; words and sentences are all level-toned, unlike English which has rising and falling tones" (Zheng Zhengde p0092). ★★ So the risk in Korean lyrics is not "is this pitch right", but "can this syllable actually be sung"—— A syllable with batchim is closed off, it cannot be held long; whileliaison shifts the syllable boundary entirely, making the line on paper and the line as sung two different things.
★ This skill only deals with one thing: how Korean syllables, batchim, and sound changes interlock with music.
Which sections to read by task
| What you want to do | Read |
|---|---|
| How to count the length of a line of lyrics | ★ §1（Count hangul blocks, not the same thing as Japanese morae） |
| What batchim is, the seven representative sounds, double batchim | §2.1–§2.2 |
| Which character can go on a long note, line-ending extension, or the highest note | ★★ §2.3（The most important section of this skill） |
| The phrasing as sung and as written do not match | ★★ §3 연음 (liaison) |
| What nasalization/tense consonantization/aspiration/palatalization sound like when sung | ★ §4 |
| Why Korean lyrics do not need to check for inverted tones, and what the cost is | ★ §5 |
| How Korean rhymes, and which sound the rhyme foot is counted by | §6 |
| How the five language layers divide up / fill in LYR-SPEC | ★ §7 ／ §8 |
| Full table of batchim, double batchim, sound change conditions and example words | ★ reference.md |
Boundaries
| Not covered here | Where it belongs |
|---|---|
| What this song is saying | lw-song-intent |
| Section function, where the hook and title go, number of lines | lw-structure |
| Imagery, concrete nouns, object writing | lw-imagery |
| General principles of rhyming: rhyme scheme, surprise factor, deliberate non-rhyme | lw-rhyme(This skill only coverswhich sound the rhyme foot is counted by, see §6) |
| Person, perspective, time anchor, blank space | lw-narrative |
| Chinese inverted tones, composing melody according to characters, thirteen rhyme categories, level and oblique tones | ★ lw-mandarin / lw-tone-check（Must not be substituted with this Korean set, see §5.3) |
| Cantonese tone-matching and nine tones | ★ lw-cantonese |
| English stress and beat alignment | ★ lw-english(The Korean-English mixed half follows the English set, see §7) |
| Japanese morae, 符割り, 字余り | ★ lw-japanese（The system where sokuon, hatsuon, and chōon each take one beat does not hold for Korean, see §1.2) |
| ★★ K-pop lyric-writing practical conventions: hook syllable conventions, Korean-English mixed-writing rules, subject-matter formulas | Not in this package. This skill only handles constraints at the phonetic level; conventions at the genre and market level are not covered in this package, use lw-structure、lw-rhyme、lw-imagery write the generic layer, and declare it in the spec sheet |
| How the melody itself is written, where the highest note is set, the number of bars in the form | Composition and arrangement |
| How those words should be sung(breathy voice, dynamics, diction, vocal direction) | Voice(recording and vocal direction) |
| Harmony stacking voicing and double strategy, microphones and placement | Voice(recording) |
| Hands-on vocal recording, pitch correction, vocal mixing | Voice(recording, mixing) |
1. ★ Hangul block = syllable = one note by default
1.1 Structure of a syllable
Korean (한글, hangul) isa phonographic script, composed of 21 vowels and 19 consonants(Zheng Zhengde p0010). ★ Vowels can form a sound on their own; consonants cannot form a sound on their own, and a consonant must combine with a vowel to produce a sound(Zheng Zhengde p0013).
A complete syllable has three positions(Zheng Zhengde p0025): 초성 (initial sound, choseong) = consonant、중성 (medial sound, jungseong) = vowel、 ★ 종성 (final sound, jongseong) = 받침 (final consonant, batchim) = consonant。
Four structures(Zheng Zhengde p0025): ★ no final consonant (open syllable)——V：아、우、위、외；C＋V：고、바、사、루； ★ with final consonant (closed syllable)——V＋C：안、육、엄、울；C＋V＋C：감、항、좁、꽃、볕。
★ A spelling rule that must be remembered：When a syllable has no initial sound, that position is filled by the letter 「ㅇ」, but at this time 「ㅇ」 is not pronounced(Zheng Zhengde p0025). Consequence：A syllable that literally begins with 「ㅇ」 is phonetically a syllable that begins with a vowel——★ The liaison in §3 is entirely triggered by this one rule. When you see particles and endings that begin with ㅇ, such as 「이/은/을/에/어」, that is where liaison will occur.
1.2 ★★ How to count the length of a line: count blocks, nothing else
★★ The length of one line of Korean = the number of Hangul blocks = the number of syllables = the default number of notes.
Three disciplines：
① A final consonant does not take up a syllable, nor does it take up a note.「감」 isoneblock,onesyllable,onenote, even though it contains three letters (ㄱ＋ㅏ＋ㅁ).
★ This is the watershed between this skill and lw-japanese .: In Japanese,the sokuon っ, the moraic n ん, and the long sound ー each occupy one beat, and must be given their own note or rest;
★★ In Korean, the final consonant is the tail of this syllable and shares the same note with it.
⚠ Using the Japanese system to count Korean will make every character with a final consonant one beat too many, and the length of the whole line will be calculated incorrectly.
② A double final consonant also counts as only one syllable.「닭」 (chicken) is written with two final consonant letters ㄹ＋ㄱ,but it is sung as only one sound(Zheng Zhengde p0043–p0045, see §2.2 for details).
③ To count length, count the "syllables actually sung," not the blocks on the page. ★ Liaison (§3) does not change the number of syllables,number, butabbreviation and elision do: "보아" contracts to "봐" (Zheng Zhengde p0083), "사아서" drops to "사서" (Zheng Zhengde p0085).
★ After writing a line, first finalize it in the form you will actually sing, then count.
prosody.sections[].syllablesWhat is filled in isthe number of character blocks in the finalized form。
1.3 Similarities and dissimilarities with Chinese
★★ Korean is like Chinese in "counting length": one character block, one syllable, one note. ★★ In "whether each syllable can be sung through" nothing is alike: Chinese can only end in -n/-ng, everything else is an open syllable, and any character can be prolonged; ★ Korean can end in all seven final consonants, including the three stops -k/-t/-p, and half the characters are closed syllables that cannot be prolonged—this is the entire problem that §2 deals with. ★★ Moreover,Chinese syllable boundaries are stable(liaison does not change boundaries),Korean is unstable——liaison moves the final consonant to the next syllable（§3）。
→ When a line is off by one character block,the short and long forms of negationare free expansion and contraction (안 가다 two blocks / 가지 않다 three blocks); for restrictions see reference.md §6; the same applies to the three groups causative, passive, and pre-final endings, §6.1–6.3.
2. ★★ 받침 (final consonant, batchim)—the core of this skill
2.1 What a final consonant is, and the seven representative sounds
Single final consonant (홀받침, hol-batchim): although there are many consonants that can serve as a syllable final, their actual pronunciation is only seven: ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㄹ, ㅁ, ㅂ, ㅇ. (Zheng Zhengde p0033)
This is "final neutralization": there are many kinds of final letters,but when read they fall into only seven slots(An Introduction to Korean p0081 describes neutralization as "syllable-final consonants become unreleased stops").
| Written as | Read as | Sound value | ★ Whether this type can be prolonged (inference of this library, see §2.3） |
|---|---|---|---|
| ㄱ, ㄲ, ㅋ | ㄱ | [-k] | ★ Cannot—stop, airflow sealed off |
| ㄴ | ㄴ | [-n] | ○ Can—nasal, voiced |
| ㄷ, ㅅ, ㅆ, ㅈ, ㅊ, ㅌ, ㅎ | ㄷ | [-t] | ★ Cannot—stop |
| ㄹ | ㄹ | [-l] | ○ Can—flap/liquid, voiced |
| ㅁ | ㅁ | [-m] | ○ Can—nasal, voiced |
| ㅂ, ㅍ | ㅂ | [-p] | ★ Cannot—stop |
| ㅇ | ㅇ | [-ŋ] | ○ Can—nasal, voiced |
(The final consonant table is based on Zheng Zhengde p0033.ㅁ, ㄴ, ㅇ are nasals and ㄹ is a flap; these four are classified in the book as voiced; ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ belong to plosives and are classified as voiceless—Zheng Zhengde p0021.)
★ Example words(Zheng Zhengde p0033–p0037): 국 (soup), 밖 [박]／손 (hand), 사진 (photo)／옷 [옫], 꽃 (flower), 끝 (end)／달 (moon), 물 (water)／마음 (heart), 꿈 (dream)／집 (house), 앞 [압]／강 (river), 사랑 (love). ★ The complete example word list is in reference.md §1.1。
★ Note the two faces of ㄹ："ㄹ" is pronounced [r] in initial position and [l] in final position(Zheng Zhengde p0035). The same letter, when placed in the final position, is [l]; once it is moved by liaison to the initial position of the next syllable, it becomes [r]（§3）。
2.2 Rules for double finals
★ A single final (홀받침) has only one consonant letter in the final position(the seven categories in the table above);A double final (겹받침, gyeop-batchim) has two written in the final position, such as ㄺ, ㄻ, ㄼ, ㄽ, ㄾ, ㅄ.
A double final, when at the end or before a consonant, pronounces only one of its sounds. When a double final combines with a particle, ending, or suffix that begins with a vowel, only the latter consonant moves to the initial position of the following syllable and is pronounced. (Zheng Zhengde p0043)
★ The book divides double finals into three groups(Zheng Zhengde p0044–p0045): ① The consonant in front is pronounced(ㄳ, ㄵ, ㄶ, ㄽ, ㄾ, ㅄ)——앉다 [안따] (to sit), 없다 [업따] (to not have); ② The consonant behind is pronounced(ㄻ, ㄿ)——젊다 [점따] (young), 읊다 [읍따] (to recite); ③ Either front or back is possible(ㄺ, ㄼ)——읽고 [일꼬] (to read), 닭 [닥] (chicken), 짧게 [짤께] (shortly), 밟지 [밥찌] (to step on). ★ The full table of the three groups and the forms after liaison are in reference.md §1.3。
★★ When writing words, the most important thing is the second rule：닭 (chicken) said alone is [닥], one sound; when combined with the nominative particle 이 it becomes 「닭이」 = [달기](Zheng Zhengde p0045)—— The ㄹ that was originally swallowed emerges again, moves to the final position of the preceding syllable, and ㄱ moves to the initial position of the following syllable. ★ Two character blocks, and the contents of both the preceding and following syllables have all changed.
★ This library's writing suggestion derived from this phonetic fact：Characters with double finals are the most unstable syllables in all-Hangul——said alone it is one way, before a consonant another way, before a vowel yet another way.
Putting it on a long note, a sentence-final prolongation, or the highest note of a paragraph is equivalent to handing the most uncertain position to the most uncertain character. If you can replace it, replace it; if you cannot, write its actual pronunciation after liaison into
note。
2.3 ★★ The impact of finals on singing (The conclusion of this section is an inference by this library, not something said in the book）
⚠ Scope: The four books on which this skill is basedare all phonetics textbooks; they discuss how to pronounce, not how to sing。 ★★ The following section is a writing suggestion derived by this library from "the phonetic values of the seven representative sounds," not a conclusion in the book——it relies only on one fact no one denies:Stops seal off the airflow; nasals and liquids do not seal it off.
Phonetic facts (what is in the book)：ㄱ [-k], ㄷ [-t], ㅂ [-p] are plosives and are voiceless; ㄴ [-n], ㅁ [-m], ㅇ [-ŋ] are nasals, and ㄹ [-l] is a flap, and they are voiced(Zheng Zhengde p0021, p0033);A consonant cannot form a sound by itself(Zheng Zhengde p0013).
This library's four writing suggestions derived from these two points：
- ★★ Long notes, sentence-final prolongation, the highest note of a paragraph (
peak_syllable), give priority to characters with open syllables (no final)——an open syllable ends in a vowel, and the vowel can be drawn out indefinitely. - ★ When a syllable with a final consonant cannot be avoided, choose one of the four voiced finals ㄴ/ㅁ/ㅇ/ㄹ, not ㄱ/ㄷ/ㅂ—— Nasals and liquids are voiced and can be sung on pitch (nasal resonance);plosives block the airflow, and when held long the final cannot be sustained: either cut it off early and sing the rest as a stretch of vowel with no syllable, or hold it in, and neither sounds good.
- ★ If the last syllable of a phrase has a ㄱ/ㄷ/ㅂ final, that breath is in effect cut off——If you want that "abrupt stop," use it; if not, change the syllable.
- When several syllables with plosive finals in a row are placed on a fast phrase, the articulation becomes heavy and choppy(each syllable requires closing the mouth once)——Rap can make use of this choppiness; lyrical long lines should avoid it.
★★ Self-check actions (must do)：List the highest note of each section, each long note, and each position where the end of a phrase is prolonged, and check one by one whether the syllable there has a final consonant and which type it is.
★ ㄱ/ㄷ/ㅂ → change the syllable, or shorten the duration at this position(Changing the duration is a compositional/arrangement decision; write a message to
music, seelw-workflow§6.2）； ★ ㄴ/ㅁ/ㅇ/ㄹ → make a note; it can be sung, but the timbre will change (nasal timbre)；★ Open syllable → pass.
Conditions under which this fails：① ★ Liaison will make this check fail——when a syllable that has a final consonant on paper is followed by a syllable beginning with a vowel,the final is moved away, and this syllable becomes an open syllable on the spot（§3）， Therefore this check must be run after liaison has been done；② At the end of a sentence and the end of a phrase, there is nothing after the syllable to undergo liaison——the final therecannot escape, and that is the hardest position.
3. ★★ 연음 (liaison, yeoneum)——the boundary that is sung is not the boundary that is written
3.1 The rule itself
Liaison rule (연음법칙): when a final consonant (except ㅇ, ㅎ) is followed by a syllable beginning with a vowel, the final must move to the initial position of the following syllable and become the initial part of the following syllable. (Jung Jeong-deok p0052)
Examples given in the book(Jung Jeong-deok p0052):clothes [오시], at home [지베], rice [바블], the moon [다리], sit [안자], bright [발가]. ★ More example words, the academic account of syllable boundaries, and "why marking and pronunciation diverge" are in reference.md §2.1。
★ Scope of application："It is not that liaison occurs whenever a vowel-initial character is encountered; liaison occurs mainly with: 1. particles of nouns, 2. word endings, 3. adjective endings, etc."(Liu Xiaoying p0174).
★ The two exceptions where liaison does not occur are both written in the rule：
- The ㅇ [-ŋ] final does not move：When combined with a vowel, the final "ㅇ" does not undergo sound transfer——from the river [강에서], love [사랑을], to the airport [공항으로](Jung Jeong-deok p0037).
★ Directly useful for lyric writing：When a syllable with a ㅇ final is followed by a vowel, the syllable boundary does not move, making it themost stable type of closed syllable in all-Hangul——it has nasal resonance and can be held, and it will not be moved away by liaison.
- The ㅎ final does not follow liaison："The sound 'ㅎ' undergoes weakening or is not pronounced between voiced sounds"——good [조은], born [나아서](Jung Jeong-deok p0035).
3.2 ★★ What this means for lyric writing
Four items, all derived directly from the rule above (the corollary parts are marked)：
① The syllable boundary on paper and the syllable boundary when sung are not the same line. 「꽃이」is written 꽃＋이, but sung as [꼬치]——the dividing line moves from "꽃 | 이" to "꼬 | 치"。 ★ The syllablecounthas not changed (still two sounds, two notes),but the content loaded under each note has changed.
② ★ The landing point of the rhyme must be calculated according to the actual pronunciation after liaison(a recommendation derived by this library from §3.1). The line-final pronunciation of 「밥을」is [블], not [을], and not [밥].
★★ The rhyme foot of a Korean word moves——When the same noun takes different particles, the rhyme foot changes. This is where it differs most from the Chinese thirteen rhymes（→ §6）。
③ ★ Breath points and phrasing must be determined according to the boundary after liaison(a corollary of this library).Phrasing, breathing, or adding rests between the two character blocks where liaison occurs is equivalent to forcibly blocking the liaison——what is sung is [밥][을] rather than [바][블],with one extra hard onset。
★ If you must break, break where liaison does not occur: the following syllable begins with aconsonant, or the preceding syllablehas no final consonant, or the preceding syllable is ㅇ final。 If you want that hard onset, deliberately break at the liaison point——but know what you are doing.
④ ★★ The final-consonant check in §2.3 must be run after liaison. 「집」said alone is a closed syllable, [-p] final, and cannot be held long;「집에」undergoes liaison to [지베], and the first syllable immediately becomes the open syllable [지], fully holdable.
★ The same character, with or without a particle, whether it can be placed on the highest note—the answer is the opposite.
★ Self-check action: Copy each lineagain according to the actual pronunciation(doing all liaison, double-final shift, and sound changes),place the two lines side by side——the top is the lyric draft, the bottom is the actual pronunciation. ★★ All judgments about notes, breath points, rhyme feet, and the highest note must look at the bottom line.
4. ★ 음운변동 (sound change, eumun-byeondong): what happens between paper and mouth
★ This section only transcribes the rules explicitly written in the book, copying names and conditions as they are; the complete conditions and example word list are in reference.md §2。 ★★ Anything about "what it will be like when sung" is a writing recommendation derived by this library from phonetic facts——None of the four books discusses singing.
4.1 ★ The sound changes that do not change the character count: conclusions
★ The full table of conclusions for each sound change is in reference.md §8; the conditions and example words are in §2 of the same file.
4.2 ★★ 축약 (contraction) and 탈락 (deletion): these two change the line length
Contraction refers to the phenomenon in which two syllables are pronounced contracted into one syllable. This phenomenon is sometimes obligatory and sometimes optional(Zheng Zhengde p0083); Deletion refers to the phenomenon in which one of two syllables is deleted. This phenomenon is mostly obligatory, and sometimes optional(Zheng Zhengde p0085).
Contraction：보 + 아 → 봐(free), 주 + 었다 → gave(free), 가르치 + 어도 → even if taught(obligatory) (Zheng Zhengde p0083–p0084). Deletion: 가 + 았다 → 갔다, 쓰 + 었다 → 썼다(obligatory); 크지 않다 → 크잖다(free) (Zheng Zhengde p0085–p0086).
★★ This is the only one among all sound changes that alters
prosody.sections[].syllables: two character blocks become one = one fewer note per line. ★ The "free" ones are precisely the adjustment valves for writing lyrics（Usage derived by this library from "sometimes free"）：If a line has one extra character, find a place to squeeze it out; if it has one fewer, restore the abbreviated form to two syllables. ⚠ Cost (inference by this library)：Abbreviated/deleted forms are colloquial forms, while restored forms lean written—what is swapped is not just the character count, but also the register.
4.3 ★ 첨가 (Addition): a consonant appears out of nowhere
Addition refers to the phenomenon in which, when two morphemes or words form a compound word, a 「ㄴ」 final consonant or [ㄴ] sound is added under the last syllable of the preceding morpheme or word. However, not all compound words exhibit this phenomenon.(Zheng Zhengde p0087)
- Addition of 「ㄴ」(the preceding component ends in a vowel):기 + 발 → 깃발 [긷빨／기빨], 이 + 몸 → 잇몸 [인몸], 코 + 노래 → 콧노래 [콘노래](Zheng Zhengde p0087).
- Addition of [ㄴ] sound：When the preceding component ends in a consonant and the first syllable of the following component is 「이, 야, 여, 요, 유」, [ㄴ] must be added in between, becoming [니, 냐, 녀, 뇨, 뉴]—— 꽃 + 잎 → [꼰닙], 앞 + 이 → 앞니 [암니], 색 + 연필 → [생년필], 담 + 요 → [담뇨](Zheng Zhengde p0088–p0090).
★★ What happens when sung (inference by this library)：This rule is the opposite of the liaison in §3—liaison moves the final consonant away and turns a closed syllable into an open syllable; ★ addition inserts a consonant that originally did not exist, turning an open syllable into a closed syllable. If a compound word falls on a long note or rhyme, you must recheck §2.3 and §6 according to the actual pronunciation after addition.
4.4 ★ 모음조화 (Vowel harmony): a free acoustic adjustment valve given by the phonetic layer
Positive vowels match with positive vowels, and negative vowels match with negative vowels; that is, the following vowel is determined by the positivity/negativity of the preceding vowel. This phenomenon mainly appears in onomatopoeic and mimetic words and endings (connective endings, final endings).(Zheng Zhengde p0057)
Positive: preceding vowel ㅏ, ㅗ → following ㅏ(닫았다, 보아요);Negative: preceding vowel ㅓ, ㅜ, ㅡ, ㅣ, ㅚ, ㅟ → following ㅓ(먹어요, 쉬어요) (Zheng Zhengde p0057–p0058). Onomatopoeic and mimetic words in pairs：살랑살랑／설렁설렁, 졸졸／줄줄, 파랗다／퍼렇다(Zheng Zhengde p0057).
★★ Writing usage (derived by this library from the previous item)：The same onomatopoeic or mimetic word has two faces, positive/negative, with similar meanings but opposite vowel coloring. If the chorus should be bright, take the positive branch (ㅏ／ㅗ); if it should be dark, take the negative branch (ㅓ／ㅜ／ㅡ)—— ★ What changes is the vowel, not the word, sosyllable count, final consonants, and rhyme are all unchanged, making revision zero-cost. ⚠ Invalidation condition：It holds only for onomatopoeic and mimetic words and endings(Zheng Zhengde p0057); content words cannot be swapped.
5. ★ Korean has no lexical tone and no word stress: what this saves you, and what you have to supply instead
5.1 The rule itself
Standard Korean does not use pitch or stress to distinguish word meanings; words and sentences are level in pitch, and unlike English there are no rising and falling tones. Students should not produce two or more stresses within a word or sentence. (Zheng Zhengde p0092)
The only systematic rises and falls at the sentence level(Zheng Zhengde p0092):Questions without an interrogative word → the end of the sentence rises slightly ↗(Are you going to school? ↗); Statements, commands, suggestions → fall ↘；★ Questions with an interrogative word → fall ↘(Where are you going? ↘). ★ An example of meaning being distinguished by the rise or fall at the end of a sentence：When 「무엇」 has a falling tone at the end of a sentence it expresses a question (what); when it rises it expresses indefiniteness (something)(Introduction to the Korean Language p0101).
★ Another distinctive feature that is not pitch but duration：Vowel length（말／말:、눈／눈:、밤／밤:），★★ has a distinctive function only on the first syllable(Introduction to the Korean Language p0078, see §4.1 for details).
5.2 ★ What this means for writing lyrics (inference of this library)
What is saved：
★★ Korean lyrics do not need tone-checking, nor do they need pitch-accent comparison. In Chinese, if one character's tone goes wrong it becomes another character (
lw-tone-check); in Japanese, if one word's pitch pattern is reversed the whole sentence is re-segmented (lw-japanese) — Korean has no such layer. ★ How the melody rises and falls does not change the meaning of any word. Consequence：Which syllable the highest note of a passage falls on is not constrained by the language side；The same line of lyrics set to a completely different melodic contour is still the same line of lyrics.
What is supplied：★ The language no longer governs pitch, so this skill takes over three things——★★ Whether a syllable is open or closed（§2.3）、★★ The boundaries of actual pronunciation（§3）、★ The tier of the consonant(the tensing and aspiration of §4.1).
★ Two things that must be applied to passage design：
- The rise or fall at the end of a sentence is the interface between passages(usage derived by this library from Zheng Zhengde p0092):If the end of a passage is sung as rising, it sounds like an unanswered question; falling is closed.
With
lw-narrativeofwithholdingused in succession:To "stay in the discomfort", do not let the last sentence fall. - ⚠ The opposition of vowel length is valid only on the first syllable(Introduction to the Korean Language p0078) — ★ If the character to be lengthened falls on the second or a later syllable of a multisyllabic word, it will not cause mishearing; when it falls on the first syllable, have a native speaker read it once（§4.1）。
5.3 ★ The boundary with Chinese tone-checking (this cell must be remembered clearly）
- Where the constraint hangs: In Chinese it hangs oneach character(character tone is phonemic); ★ In Korean it hangs on the tail of each syllable— the final consonant determines whether it can be sung long.
- What happens if you get it wrong: In Chinese that character is heard asanother character；★ In Korean the character has not changed, it is that it cannot be sung— a plosive final cannot be held, and liaison makes the phrase break fall in the wrong place.
- Can it be determined programmatically: ChineseYes；★ Korean partially— the final-consonant category can be checked (the seven representative sounds are a closed set),the actual pronunciation after liaison must be written by a human。
- How to fix: for Chinese, swap characters / change the melodic direction / add filler syllables; ★ for Korean, swap characters (to open syllables or voiced final consonants) / change durations / change the position of line breaks.
★★ They must not substitute for each other：Using the inverted-tone approach to check Korean will not find anything— Korean has no lexical tone to begin with,everything passes, while not a single real problem gets checked；Using the Korean approach to check Chinese will miss all inverted tones. ★ For a line mixing Korean and English, or Korean and Chinese, run both approaches over it.
→ Korean's "to whom" is written inthe speech-level grade at the end of each sentence, and the six grades plus the trap of the cohortative can be found in reference.md §5；to_whom Once the grade is set, it is set; switching grades midway is an event.
6. Rhyme and rhyme endings
⚠ Scope：★ The four books this skill is based on are all phonetics textbooks; none of them discusses rhyme in lyric writing, so this section only covers the part that can be supported at the phonetic level; the general principles of rhyme (rhyme schemes, surprise factor, deliberate non-rhyme)all go to lw-rhyme。
6.1 ★★ Korean rhyme endings are counted by the actual pronunciation after liaison and sound changes
This is the only hard rule in this section, and it is a direct consequence of §3 and §4: "밥을" at the end of a line is read as [블] , not [을]; "꽃이" at the end of a line is read as [치] , not [이] (palatalization, Jeong Jeong-deok p0078); "닭이" at the end of a line is read as [기], and the preceding syllable becomes [달] (Jeong Jeong-deok p0045).
★★ The same noun with different particles has different rhyme endings. Chinese rhyme hangs on thecharacter— no matter what follows "花", its final is ua; ★ Korean rhyme hangs on "the syllable spelled out from the word plus particle/ending", which is a moving thing.
★ Self-check action：For rhyme, look only at the "actual pronunciation" line in the §3.2 self-check，Never look at the draft line.
6.2 Three differences from Chinese and English (all are readings derived in this library from phonetic facts）
- Rhyme unit: Chinese is the final (the thirteen rhyme categories), English is perfect rhyme (stressed vowel plus all following phonemes), ★ Korean is vowel plus final consonant, and final consonants have seven categories, including the three stops -k/-t/-p——★ So the open syllable 가 and the closed syllables 강, 갈, 감 are not the same rhyme.
- Whether the rhyme ending is stable: Chinese hangs on the character and English hangs on the word, so both are stable; ★★ Korean hangs on the actual sound after liaison, so it is not stable（§6.1）。
- ★ Where each is most likely to be lazy: Chinese uses only one or two broad rhyme categories (LYR-LINT item 8), English uses only ready-made rhymes like love/above, ★ Korean is making every line end on the same ending/particle.
★★ That last one needs to be expanded：Korean is an agglutinative language; the end of a line is often not a content word but a particle or ending（「-요」「-다」「-네」「-어」…）。
★ So for Korean words, "rhyming" is extremely easy—just end every line on the same ending and you've got a rhyme. ⚠ And that is exactly when it is at its cheapest: what rhymes is the grammar, not the word. ★ This library's stance：This kind of ending rhyme does not count toward
rhyme.surprise_notes; to count as surprise,you have to rhyme on the syllable of a content word, or on a new syllable formed by a particle's liaison combining with a content word(the "밥을 → [블]" of §6.1).
6.3 ★ Two tools the phonetic layer gives you for free
- Vowel harmony (§4.4)：Onomatopoeic and mimetic words and endings split into yang/yin pairs, with opposite vowel color and similar meaning (Zheng Zhengde p0057)—★ to keep the rhyme but change the color, just switch branches, and neither the syllable count nor the final consonant changes.
- Initial sound rule (두음법칙)：When borrowing Sino-Korean words from Chinese, the initial "ㄹ" must become either an "ㄴ" sound or a null sound——낙원 (樂園)／오락 (娛樂), 이치 (理致)／도리 (道理)(《Introduction to the Korean Language》 p0131; Liu Xiaoying p0189 also lists this item). ★ The same Sino-Korean morpheme looks different at the head of a word and inside a word——When doing alliteration, this rule will split apart two words you thought matched.
7. ★ The boundaries of the five language layers: one table
| Language layer | What the constraint is called | Counting unit | What happens if you get it wrong | Criterion for the highest pitch landing point |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Chinese lw-mandarin |
Tone／inverted tone | Character = syllable | Heard asanother character | Open vowel, and the tone contour does not fight the melody |
Cantonese lw-cantonese |
Tone matching | Character = syllable | Heard asanother character(stricter) | Characters allowed by tone matching |
English lw-english |
Stress | ★ Number of stresses, not the total number of syllables | Heard asa sentence that has been mispronounced | Stressed syllable, open vowel |
Japanese lw-japanese |
Mora count (モーラ) | ★ mora, with geminate, moraic nasal, and long sound each counting as one mora | The whole sentence is re-segmented into another string of words | Cannot be a null sound, cannot be a moraic nasal |
| ★ Korean (this skill) | ★ Syllable and final consonant (받침) | ★ Hangul block = syllable，The final consonant does not take an extra mora | ★ The character is right, but it cannot be sung／it breaks in the wrong place | ★★ Open syllable; second choice is a ㄴ／ㅁ／ㅇ／ㄹ final consonant（§2.3） |
★ Is the melodic direction constrained by language: Chinese is constrained (hard), Cantonese is the hardest, Japanese is constrained (pitch accent), English is weak, ★★ Korean is not constrained(Zheng Zhengde p0092)—this is the most important cell in this table.
★★ Five disciplines：
① Do not use the inverted-tone approach to check Korean—Korean has no character tones, so everything will pass and not a single real problem will be checked (§5.3).
② Do not use Japanese beat counts to count Korean— A final consonant does not occupy a beat; it will make every closed syllable count as one extra beat (§1.2).
③ Do not use Chinese's thirteen rhymes to infer Korean rhymes— Korean rhymes are only determined after liaison (§6.1).
④ For a line written in a mix, run it through both sets separately.
⑤ ★ When writing Korean-English mixed, the English half is run through according to lw-english stress and syllable count；
★★ Once the same English word is written as a Korean loanword, the syllable count will increase— When Korean absorbs loanwords, **"by adding the vowel 'ㅡ' after it, the syllable-final plosive is broken outward"**,
When the syllable-final sound is a fricative, this method must be used：silk → 실크 (1→2), camp → 캠프 (1→2), scarf → 스카프 (1→3)(Introduction to the Korean Language pp. 0130–p0131; for the full table see reference.md §3）。
★★ Usage (inferred by this library)：This is the Korean version of the katakana adjustment valve——If you want more notes, write it as a loanword; if you want fewer, write it back in English. ⚠ Cost：What is exchanged is register, not just syllable count；★ Korean has no r/l opposition(race/lace are both 레이스, Introduction to the Korean Language p0131),a pun relying on r/l cannot stand.
8. Correspondence with LYR-SPEC fields
| Field | How to fill in Korean words |
|---|---|
meta.language |
韩文 |
prosody.sections[].syllables |
★★ Fill in the number of Hangul blocks(= syllable count = note count),count according to the final form after abbreviation/elision（§1.2、§4.2） |
prosody.sections[].stress_positions |
★ Korean has no word stress(§5.1). Instead fill inwhich character block the melodic strong beat falls on, and markwhether it has a final consonant |
prosody.sections[].peak_syllable |
★★ Prefer filling in open-syllable characters; next are ㄴ/ㅁ/ㅇ/ㄹ final consonants;do not fill in ㄱ/ㄷ/ㅂ final consonants or double final consonants（§2.2、§2.3） |
prosody.sections[].melody_contour |
★ Not constrained by character tone(§5.2). Record onlythe rise and fall at the end of the segmentand its corresponding sentence pattern (§5.1) |
prosody.sections[].notes |
○ When there is a pitch sequence, use it only to checkwhich character block the long note falls on（§2.3） |
lyrics[].lines |
★ Line break = breath point。★★ In note , attach the actual pronunciation of this line（§3.2） |
rhyme.che |
★ Korean has no rhyme categories. Fill inthe actual pronunciation syllables at the end of the line(vowel + final consonant),not the characters in the word draft |
rhyme.surprise_notes |
★ Repeated use of the same ending/particle does not count as a surprise(§6.2); it only counts if it rhymes on a content word or a new syllable formed by liaison |
asymmetry.short_line |
Useabbreviation/elisionto suppress one syllable, or restore the abbreviated form to two syllables (§4.2)—★ record the register it exchanges |
checks.self_audit |
Go through §9 item by item |
⚠ Korean replacements for the two lint rules：
- Item 7(inverted-character rate/cacophony violation) ★ does not apply to Korean(§5.2)—instead run ★ the final consonant check in §2.3and ★ the actual pronunciation transcription in §3.2；
- Item 8(a rhyme scheme must not use only one or two broad rhyme categories) ★ change to run "proportion of line-ending rhymes"：list the end of each line and see how many lines end on the same particle or ending（§6.2）。
★ the remaining eight items (intent four items, concrete nouns, character count per section,asymmetry、withholding、pov, rhyme unexpectedness, the chorus must not repeat verbatim)all apply to Korean as usual。
9. Final self-check
- ★★ every line has a copy of itsactual pronunciation(with liaison, sound changes, abbreviation/deletion all completed) written beside it (§3.2);the syllable count has been checked against the number of character blocks in the final form, without counting a final consonant as one beat (§1.2)
- ★ for characters with double final consonantsthe pronunciation after liaison is marked, and they have not been placed on a long note or the highest note (§2.2)
- ★★ the final consonant has been checked for the highest note of each section, each long note, and each character prolonged at the end of a sentence—— open syllables pass; ㄴ／ㅁ／ㅇ／ㄹ note it down; ㄱ／ㄷ／ㅂ replace or shorten the duration（§2.3）
- ★ this checkis run against the actual pronunciation, not against the lyric draft;the final consonant of the character at the end of a musical phraseis an informed choice (§2.3)
- ★ breaths and line breaks do not fall between the two character blocks where liaison occurs, and where they do fall it is intentional (§3.2)
- the positions of nasalization/tense consonantization/aspiration/palatalizationare marked, especiallywhere tense consonantization falls on a lyrical long sentence（§4.1）
- ★ for compound words, the final consonants and rhymes have been rechecked according to the pronunciation after addition(§4.3); where the character count was adjusted by abbreviation/deletionthe register is noted（§4.2）
- ★ Korean has not been checked using the inverted-character method or the Japanese mora-count method（§5.3、§7）
- therising and fallingat the end of a section matches whether that section is a "question" or an "answer" (§5.2); if a character to be prolonged falls onthe first syllable of a word, someone has been asked to read it aloud (§4.1)
- ★★ rhymes are calculated according to actual pronunciation, not according to the characters in the lyric draft;
rhyme.chefill in the final syllable of the actual pronunciation, not the rhyme category (§6.1, §8) - ★ count the lines ending in the same particle/ending at the end of the line, no entire passage relies on the ending for rhyme (§6.2)
- ★ English mixed inby
lw-englishwent through it once, where it is written as a loanwordthe syllable count was recounted（§7）
Appendix: Sources
- Main sources: Jeong Jeong-deok, Introduction to Korean Phonetics, page numbers noted in text.
- System and terminology: Lee Ik-seop, Lee Sang-eok, Chae Wan, Introduction to Korean (translated by Zhang Guangjun and Jiang Bo) —sound length "is only valid in the first syllable" p0078、syllable boundaries and "Korean is a syllable-nucleus language" p0079–p0080、중화: syllable-final consonants become unreleased stops, and there are only seven p0081–p0082, final "ㅎ" p0090, sentence-final rising/falling changing the meaning of "무엇" p0101,loanwords and the addition of "ㅡ" p0130–p0131、두음법칙 p0131。 ★ the theoretical basis for §3 comes from this book："the current orthography adopts the writing principle of clearly reflecting the basic form of morphemes, that is, marking the underlying form, and therefore spelling and pronunciation correspondingly diverge"（p0082）。
- example words and side-by-side comparison: Liu Xiaoying, Quick Introduction to Korean Pronunciation, page numbers noted in text.
- the fourth side-by-side source: New Charm Korean Pronunciation Introduction —there are 27 final consonants in total: 16 single finals and 11 double finals（p0011）。
- ⚠ five points of discrepancy： ① ★★ all instances of "what it would be like when sung" (§2.2, §2.3, §3.2, §4, §6.2) are writing suggestions derived by this library from phonetic facts——all four books are phonetics textbooks; none of them discusses singing. The facts relied on are only two:plosives seal off the airflow(Jeong Jeong-deok p0021; Liu Xiaoying p0131; Introduction to Korean p0081'sunreleased stops），nasals and liquids do not seal it off(Jeong Jeong-deok p0021). ② "how many final consonants are there" has two coexisting accounts：seven actual pronunciations(Jeong Jeong-deok p0033, Introduction to Korean p0081, referring to phonetic values) versus 27(New Charm Korean Pronunciation Introduction p0011, referring to letter combinations) —different levels, this skill checks according to the phonetic-value set. ③ the triggering letters for palatalization differ between the two books(Jeong Jeong-deok p0078 writes ㄷ/ㅌ, Liu Xiaoying p0175 writes ㄴ/ㄹ), ★ the example words are completely identical, and this skill follows the example words。 ④ when ㄴ and ㄹ come together, Jeong Jeong-deok p0063 gives two results at the same time；for tensification after voiced sounds, "sometimes... sometimes..." also has no criterion(Jeong Jeong-deok p0069) —this skill makes no judgment and supplies nothing for either point. ⑤ ★ Terminology：Liu Xiaoying calls "tense consonants" "heavy sounds"（p0123、p0177）——unrelated to English stress；this skill consistently uses "tense consonant/tensification".
- ⚠ this skill applies only to Korean; for Chinese see
lw-mandarin／lw-tone-check, for Cantonese seelw-cantonese, for English seelw-english，see Japanese version atlw-japanese——★ The five sets of constraints cannot substitute for one another（§7）。 - always goes out of the library(same as the "Boundaries" table): K-pop practical conventions and subject-matter formulas →
lw-structure＋lw-rhyme＋lw-imagery; melody → composition and arrangement; vocal coaching, vocal recording and mixing → Voice。