Not only idols and actors, but also ordinary people! The reason why many Koreans are good singers lies in “Hangul”!

There are many Japanese who are good dancers, but few who are good singers.”

Koreans are good singers, actors, and even ordinary people.

As a fan of Korean dramas and K-pop since the first Korean boom, I am convinced of this. However, K-pop is now very popular in Japan, and many people may have been astonished at how well K-pop idols sing when they hear them sing at live performances.

Recently, the number of Japanese who want to become K-pop idols has been increasing rapidly, and Korean entertainment agencies frequently hold auditions for trainees in Japan. One of the comments heard from a Japanese auditioner was, “There are many Japanese who are good dancers, but there are few who are good singers.

Survival audition programs originating from Korea have often shown the two extremes: Japanese trainees who express their anxiety, saying, “I am confident in dancing but not in singing,” and Korean trainees who show off their excellent singing voices as if they are the main vocalists.

Why do Koreans sing so well?

To answer this longstanding question, I interviewed Sayaka Ankura, a phonetics voice trainer who runs a vocal lesson studio based on phonetics, and Soomi, a Korean voice trainer who serves as a trainer in the studio’s K-POP training course. In the course of exploring “why Koreans are such good singers,” three key words emerged: “language,” “national character,” and “environment (education).

The “Hangul,” the Korean alphabet, has a lot to do with this.

According to Ms. Soomi, a Korean who also excels at reading and writing Japanese, “The reason why many Koreans are good singers has a lot to do with Hangeul, the Korean alphabet.

The Hangul alphabet has vowels and consonants just like Japanese, but they were created with “sound” in mind.

Consonants are created by imitating the shape and movement of the sound organs, for example, “ ㄱ (fang sound) is made with the root of the tongue blocking the throat, and “ㅁ” (lip sound) is made with the mouth. ㅁ” (labial sound) represents the shape of the mouth (see Figure 1).

There are 19 consonants and 21 vowels, significantly more than in Japanese, and each sound is clearly distinguished from the others. Since both of them are combined to form a single syllable (“consonant + vowel” or “consonant + vowel + consonant” combination, see Figure 2), there are variations in sound. *Refer to Figure 2), there are many variations of sound. The nasal cavity, oral cavity, and pharynx must be utilized to the fullest to produce accurate sounds.