ㅂ Batchim: Sounds, Rules and Examples

What you'll learn

• Name the letters that make the final ㅂ sound (ㅂ and ㅍ, plus the double batchim ㅄ and ㄿ).
• Close the lips without releasing air, so 앞 ends as [압] and not "ahp-uh".
• Predict which letter comes back when a vowel follows: 밥이 [바비], 앞이 [아피].
• Say 입니다 as [임니다], with ㅂ turning into m before ㄴ.

Prerequisites: you can read basic Hangul blocks, and you know that a batchim (받침) is the consonant written under a syllable. Time: about 20 minutes.

Key facts

• Two single letters end in this sound: ㅂ and ㅍ. The double batchim ㅄ and ㄿ reduce to it as well.
• The lips close, the air stays inside, and the syllable stops.
• A vowel after the syllable brings the original letter back: 앞에 [아페], 입이 [이비].
• Revised Romanization writes this sound as p: 밥 bap, 앞 ap, 숲 sup.

Listen first. Each clip plays once, with no autoplay.

The next section explains why this short, closed ending is hard to copy at first.

Why English Speakers Struggle with the ㅂ Batchim

English speakers struggle with the ㅂ batchim because English teaches them to finish a word with a small puff or an extra vowel sound. In careful English speech the "p" in "cap" often ends with a burst of air. Many learners also add a weak "uh" and say "ahp-uh" for 앞.

Korean does neither. The lips close, the syllable ends, and the mouth stays shut for a moment. A second habit is voicing. English speakers sometimes turn final ㅂ into a "b" sound, so 밥 becomes "bab". Standard Korean does not use a voiced b at the end of a syllable.

You already make this gesture in English without noticing. Say "hip-hop" at normal speed. The first "p" usually closes the lips and does not release before the "h" begins. Korean final ㅂ works the same way, but it also happens at the end of a word, where English would release the sound.

The simplest true description is this: stop the sound with your lips, and do not let air out. The next section lists which letters you will see when you need that gesture.

Which Letters Make the Final ㅂ Sound?

Two single letters, ㅂ and ㅍ, make the final ㅂ sound. Two double batchim, ㅄ and ㄿ, also reduce to it. The table lists each spelling with its spoken form. A spoken form in [brackets] is what you actually say. The Revised Romanization (RR) column is only a learning aid.

Notice that 입 (mouth) and 잎 (leaf) sound the same alone. Both are [입]. Context, and the next particle, tell them apart: 입이 [이비] against 잎이 [이피].

The double batchim ㅄ and ㄿ are covered in full in the double batchim lessons. For now, remember the rule: whichever way the batchim is written, if it belongs to the ㅂ group, the lips close and the sound stops.

The NIKL Standard Pronunciation Rules (표준 발음법, 국립국어원) name ㅂ as one of seven representative final sounds in Article 8, and Article 9 lists ㅍ as reducing to it. The seven are collected in The 7 Final Sounds. The next section turns the rule into a movement you can practise.

How Do You Pronounce the ㅂ Batchim?

To pronounce the ㅂ batchim, close both lips on the end of the syllable and hold them shut without letting air out. Follow these five steps with 밥.

1. Say the first part, 바, with the lips opening for the ㅂ and the mouth relaxing into ㅏ.
2. Keep the vowel at its normal length. Do not stretch it.
3. Close your lips firmly, as if you were about to say "m", but keep the nose closed too.
4. Hold the closure for about one beat. Your cheeks should not puff out.
5. Relax the lips slowly and silently. No "uh" sound should follow.

You'll know it worked when the word sounds clipped, as if somebody pressed pause. A native listener hears [밥] with a finished ending, not "bap-uh".

Two self-checks. First, the tissue test: hold a thin tissue about five centimetres from your mouth. English "cap!" often makes it flutter. Korean 앞 at the end of a phrase should not. Second, the lip-closure hold: say 밥 and keep the lips closed for a full second. If the lips close but you still feel air leaving, the closure is not tight enough.

The general gesture is shared by ㄱ and ㄷ finals. It is taught in Korean Unreleased Consonants, which is worth reading before this lesson if the idea of "no release" is new. Next comes what happens when a vowel follows and the lips must open again.

What Returns before a Vowel?

Before a vowel, the original letter returns and moves to the start of the next syllable. This is called liaison (the final consonant links to the next vowel). The closure is then released, because the letter is now the beginning of a syllable and not an ending.

The key detail is that ㅍ does not turn into ㅂ here. Alone, 앞 ends in [p̚] and you cannot hear the aspiration (the strong puff of ㅍ). Once a vowel follows, ㅍ is at the start of a syllable again, so its puff comes back: 앞에 [아페]. Learners who always say [아베] have applied the final-sound rule too far.

The same linking happens with particles. A noun that ends in ㅂ or ㅍ meets 이 (subject marker), 은/는 (topic marker) or 을/를 (object marker) and the batchim moves across: 밥을 [바블], 집은 [지븐]. The rule for linking is the same every time, so you do not need to memorise each particle separately.

The reading task is therefore simple: look at what follows the batchim. If a vowel follows, say the original consonant. If a consonant follows, or the word ends, say [p̚]. The next section covers the main consonant case.

What Does ㅂ Become before ㄴ and ㅁ?

Before ㄴ or ㅁ, final ㅂ becomes m. The lips are already closed for ㅂ, and the next sound is a nasal (a sound made with air through the nose), so the closure turns into a hum. This is nasal assimilation, which the Standard Pronunciation Rules cover in Article 18.

입니다 is the best-known case. Learners meet it in the first lesson ("It is...") and see ㅂ, but every Korean speaker says [임니다]. The same sound change makes 합니다 [함니다]. Revised Romanization follows the sound and writes hamnida.

When a plain ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㅅ or ㅈ follows, ㅂ stays a closed stop and the next consonant becomes tense. 밥도 is [밥또], with a tight ㄸ, and 집도 is [집또]. This is tensification (Article 23), covered in its own lesson.

Full practice with this rule is in ㅂ nasalization. The next section puts everything together with one fully worked word.

Worked Example: 밥

밥 (cooked rice, a meal) is a good worked example because it is one syllable, it is very common, and it shows all three behaviours of ㅂ in one family of forms.

Step 1: read the blocks. 밥 has ㅂ as the first consonant, ㅏ as the vowel, and ㅂ again under the vowel as the batchim.

Step 2: say the first ㅂ. The first ㅂ starts the syllable. It is soft, with little puff of air: [바].

Step 3: close the lips for the batchim. The second ㅂ is final, so the lips close and hold: [밥]. RR writes this as bap.

Step 4: add a vowel. With the subject particle 이, 밥이 becomes [바비]. The batchim moved across.

Step 5: add a nasal. With 만 (only), 밥만 becomes [밤만].

Step 6: add a plain consonant. With 도 (also), 밥도 becomes [밥또].

Compare 밥 [밥] with 밤 [밤]. Both close the lips. The difference is the nose. In 밥 no air passes at all. In 밤 air hums through the nose. If you pinch your nose while saying 밤, the sound breaks. If you pinch it while saying 밥, nothing changes. This is the quickest way to hear the difference between the two final sounds. Practising it prepares you for the ㅁ final in ㅁ Batchim.

The next section lists the mistakes that appear most often at this point.

Common Learner Mistakes with the ㅂ Batchim

Learners often assume one of four things about the ㅂ batchim. Each assumption has a reason, and each can be fixed.

Learners often assume the final ㅂ is a voiced "b". Actually it is an unreleased [p̚], because Standard Korean does not voice a final stop. Fix: rest two fingers on your throat. If the buzz of the vowel carries on into the ending, you are voicing it.

Learners often assume ㅍ at the end keeps its puff. Actually the aspiration disappears and ㅍ reduces to the same [p̚] as ㅂ, because aspiration needs a following vowel to be heard. Fix: say 앞 and 압 and check that they end identically.

Learners often assume the letter in the spelling is always the letter you say. Actually 밥이 is [바비], 앞이 is [아피], 입니다 is [임니다]. The spelling stays the same, and the sound follows the neighbours. Fix: read the spoken form in brackets in this lesson, then compare it with the written form.

Learners often assume a vowel must follow the batchim. Actually the syllable can simply end. Adding "uh" (a weak 으) makes the word sound like a different word with more syllables: 밥 said as "bab-uh" sounds like 바브. Fix: keep the lips shut and count one beat before relaxing.

Beyond these four, one limit is worth stating. This lesson describes Standard Korean as spoken in Seoul. Some regional speakers may release final stops more audibly, and fast speech can shorten the closure. For learning, the unreleased version is the safest target.

The next section gives you a short set of tasks to test yourself.

Practice and Answer Key

Complete the four tasks, then check the key.

Task 1. Write the spoken form of each word: 앞, 숲, 집, 잎.

Task 2. Write the spoken form of each word with its particle: 밥이, 앞에, 숲이, 입을.

Task 3. Write the spoken form: 입니다, 합니다, 밥만.

Task 4. One of these has a different spoken ending from the others. Which one? 밥, 밤, 앞, 집.

Answer key

1. 앞 [압], 숲 [숩], 집 [집], 잎 [입].
2. 밥이 [바비], 앞에 [아페], 숲이 [수피], 입을 [이블].
3. 입니다 [임니다], 합니다 [함니다], 밥만 [밤만].
4. 밤. It ends in a nasal [m]. The other three end in the unreleased [p̚].

If you missed no more than one of the twelve items, move on. If the particle forms in tasks 2 and 3 were hard, re-read the sections on vowels and nasals and say each form aloud twice.

Where to Go Next

After the ㅂ batchim, continue with ㅇ Batchim, the last of the seven final sounds. Before it, you can review the initial ㅂ ㅃ ㅍ contrast in ㅂ ㅍ ㅃ difference, because the same three letters behave differently at the start of a syllable. The section you came from is The 7 Final Sounds.

This lesson does not cover the full double batchim set (11 spellings), tensification in detail, or regional pronunciation. Those topics have their own lessons in the Pronunciation hub.

About this page. Last updated 2026-10-09. The Korean text, spoken forms and audio on this page were machine-generated and reviewed and signed off by Min-ji Park on 15 October 2026. Standard Korean follows the National Institute of Korean Language (국립국어원) Standard Pronunciation Rules, and romanization follows the Revised Romanization of Korean (2000).

Frequently Asked Questions

Is final ㅍ pronounced? Final ㅍ is pronounced, but not as ㅍ. At the end of a word or before a consonant it reduces to the unreleased [p̚], so 앞 sounds like 압. When a vowel follows, ㅍ comes back with its puff: 앞에 is [아페]. Only the first case is the ㅂ batchim sound.

How do I say 입니다? 입니다 is said [임니다]. The ㅂ in 입 meets the ㄴ in 니다 and turns into m, because the lips are already closed and the next sound is a nasal. Say 임, close your lips for a beat, then add 니다. Revised Romanization writes imnida.

Why is 앞 pronounced 압? 앞 is pronounced [압] because only seven sounds can end a Korean syllable, and ㅍ is not one of them. The aspiration of ㅍ needs a following vowel to be heard, so at the end it reduces to ㅂ. The Standard Pronunciation Rules describe this as a representative sound.

What is the difference between 밥 and 밤? 밥 ends in an unreleased [p̚] with no airflow, and 밤 ends in a nasal [m] with air through the nose. They mean "cooked rice" and "night" or "chestnut". The lips close for both, so test by pinching your nose: only 밤 changes. The ㅂ batchim is the silent one.

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