Confusion over letters changing based on previous word

Japanese Language
1

Is there a rule as to when a word becomes ご instead of こ

Example:
てんごく (uses ご )
がいこくじん (uses こ)

I am not sure what the grammar point I should be searching, or have a list of situations where the letter changes.

The go and ko beginning letters is one example, I am sure there are others. It becomes confusing when doing Wanikani reviews.

Thank you so much!

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This is called rendaku. Since I’m pretty bad at explaining things, here’s a good article about it: Rendaku: Why Hito-Bito isn't Hito-Hito

As for your example: 国(こく) usually doesn’t rendaku, but there are two exceptions on WaniKani: 天国(てんごく) and 中国(ちゅうごく). I don’t know if there are any other exceptions outside of WaniKani, though.

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Thanks for the link, I appreciate it. You did a great job with summarizing it. I will read the link you sent :blush:

If others see this comment, would appreciate to know other examples.

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Hm, are you ok with using userscripts? Because if you are, there is a great rendaku script that I highly recommend.

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両国りょうごく is an area of Tokyo, just over the river from Nihonbashi
.隣国りんごく is taught by WaniKani
戦国時代せんごくじだい is a period of Japanese history often featured in samurai-genre anime

They’re not really exceptions, just infrequent examples.

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I haven’t worked with user scripts, so I am gonna check this out in the evening. I have been constantly making a lot of errors, so both links you provide are super useful for me!

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Whoops, I forgot about the neighbouring country, sorry :sweat_smile: