I've been in Korea for... / 한국에 온 지 ... 됐어요

It took me a long time to figure out how to answer the question "how long have you been in Korea?" properly. When I asked koreans how to say "i've been in Korea for 6 months" being the adorable little Koreans they are and rather than translating the meaning of the sentence, they translated the words themselve, and gave me: "한국에 6개월 동안 살았어요"han-guk-e 6gae weol dong-an sa-rass-eo-yo translating the "for" as "동안"dong-an / a word that kind of means while and for and during which is of course, fine, but not standard Korean, and not really what you say in this context.

Often the question "how long have you been in Korea?" Is rendered: 한국에 온 지 얼마 됐어요?han-guk-ae on-ji eol-ma dwaess-eo-yo This literally means "the coming to Korea time has been how much?" or perhaps the better way of putting this would "how much time is it since you came to Korea?".

So your answer needs to use the construction: ㅡㄴ/-은 지-n/-eun ji. This is a little complicated, grammtically, but it impresses people. So if you know how to say month/year/day I would recommend learning the phrase and inserting your own time into it.

Answers to: 한국에 온 지 얼마 됐어요?han-guk-ae on-ji eol-ma dwaess-eo-yo / how long have you been in Korea?

• 한국에 온 지 1년 됐어요han-guk-ae on-ji il-yeon dwess-eo-yo / I've been in Korea for 1 year
• 한국에 온 지 3개월 됐어요han-guk-ae on-ji sam-gae-weol dwess-eo-yo / I've been in Korea for 3 months
• 한국에 온 지 6주일 됐어요han-guk-ae on-ji yuk-ju-il dwess-eo-yo / I've been in Korea for for 6 weeks
• 한국에 온 지 10일 됐어요 han-guk-ae on-ji ship-ildwess-eo-yo / I've been in Korea for 10 days
• 한국에 온 지 1년 3개월 6주일 10일 됐어요 han-guk-ae on-ji il-yeon, sam-gae-weol yuk-ju-il ship-il dwess-eo-yo / I've been in Korea for q year, 3 months, 6 weeks and 10 days

Notice that we use the Chinese number system to count months, days, years and weeks. If you want to include months and days or years and months, just start with the longest one first: years, months, weeks, days.
finally if you want to give the short answer, which is much more conversational, you can drop the 한국에 온 지han-guk-ae on-ji / I've been in Korea....

The reason why Koreans are born at 1 year old

The last two posts were about the complicated way in which people count age and birthdays in Korea, but did you ever stop and wonder why Koreans are born at 1 year old? If you ask anyone who's been in Korea a while, the answer you will doubtlessly hear is that the 9 months the baby spends in the womb counts as 1 year. If you don't think about it, it seems to make sense, but give it a moment's thought and really is just total nonsense. Firstly How can 9 months be counted as a year? And if you don't know when the child was conceived, how on Earth can you start counting it's age?
The real reason is mainly mathematical, but has a lot to do with Korean culture too.

Korean culture is extremely conservative. Ancient practises, customs and habits have been fossilised into the fabric of modern korean society and they still shape attitudes today. For example In the 17th century some European sailors shipwrecked on the shore of Jeju-do were arrested and held captive in Korea for 13 years basically because they were foreigners. Not much has changed: just think about your friends with Korean wives! hahaha... Anyway Because Korean culture is so conservative many things which other cultures have forgotten about are kept alive. And one of these things is inclusive counting.

Before the invention and importation of zero to Europe and East Asia, inclusive counting was the standard. Remember Roman numerals? There's no zero there. When zero arrived a new counting system was invented and inclusive counting was forgotten, in most places, for ever.

Inclusive counting basically means that instead of counting from 0, you start counting from 1. And when people counted days, months, years, they used this system.

Today is Saturday.
Not counting inclusively, if I say "in two days" I mean Monday. Saturday is "0", Sunday "1" and Monday "2".
Counting inclusively Saturday is "1" Sunday is "2" and Monday is "3".
So that means if I wanted to say "in 2 days (on Monday)" using inclusive counting I would have had to say "in 3 days"!

It's exactly the same with years and if we count backwards.
It's 2012
Not counting inclusively if I say "three" years ago I mean 2009 -> 2012 is "0" 2011 is "1" 2010 is "2" and 2009 is "3"
Counting inclusively, 2009 is 4 years ago! ->2012 is "1" 2011 is "2" 2010 is "3" and 2009 is "4"!

So whenever you count anything inclusively the value is one more than not counting inclusively! Just like Koreans are normally one year older than their western counterparts born in the same year!

Although Korea doesn't use inclusive counting officially, it has been kept for counting birthdays, much like the lunar calendar is used for traditional holidays. So the real reason that Koreans are born at 1 and not zero is that they count birthdays using an ancient system of counting which has no 0 and therefore starts at 1.

Birthdays and Age, a crazy confusion 2: the lunar calendar

If you read the last post... The korean system for counting age would mean that anyone born in Korea on the 31 December is 1 year old, and the next day they would turn 2 years old. Crazy you think? This is Korea, so things inevitably get crazier...

In Korea there are 2 calendars or ways of counting the days of the year. They are 양력yang-nyeok / The Solar, modern/western calendar and 음력eum-nyeok / the Lunar, ancient/chinese calendar. The two big holidays 추석chu-seok / the Korean harvest festival and 설날seol-lal / lunar new year's are determined by the lunar calendar and 설날seol-lal / lunar new year's is the beginning of the lunar new year and calendar. Some people count their age, not by the Solar calendar, but by the lunar one. Instead of getting one year older on the first of January, they get one year older on the first day of 설날seol-lal / lunar new year's. Just like Easter'seaster is also determined by the ancient European lunar calendar exact days change every year, so do 설날seol-lal / lunar new year's's. So if you use the lunar calendar to count your birthday, the day changes every year too.

Luckily it's mainly old people and people from Daegu who like to make things like this extremely confusing by counting their age through the lunar calendar. Because the date changes every year, and its difficult to keep track of when your birthday is on the solar calendar, some people just make up a solar birthday and put it on their ID. Other people, tired of stupid foreigners always asking questions, just say "I don't know when my birthday is."

Birthdays and Age, a crazy confusion 1

Age is very important in Korean culture, and people from other countries are often taken aback when immediately after shaking someone's hand, they are asked: "how old are you?" For some it's simply more surprising than offensive, but it's often both and it's definitely weird (until you get used to it).

But it's not just the question that can cause problems, it's also the answer. Most countries, going Westwards from China, are born 0 years old and one year after their birth, they turn 1 year old. In Korea and China, on the other hand, the moment people are born, they are 1. So on their next birthday they are 2 (notice here I didn't write "turn 2", keep on reading to see why), basically making everyone one year older than they are in the West.
For an American born in 1990 he would be 22 this year(2012), but for a Korean, she would be 23.

But! Things get even more complicated because Koreans don't actually get older on their birthdays. They get older on New Years! This took me a long while to get my head around, but basically you celebrate your birth on your birthday, but you add an extra year to your age on January the 1st every year. What that means is that from the day of your birthday to January the first of the next year you are one year older than in the West. But from January the 1st of the next year until your birthday, you are two years older than your western age. Remember your western age gets +1 on year birthday.
So for an American born on June the 1st 1990 he would be 22 this year(September 2012), but in Korea, before January the 1st 2013, he would be 23. And after January the 1st 2013 until his birthday in 2013 he would be two years older(24) than his western age!

This can be a little confusing, dont think about it too much and calculate your calculate your Korean age first!

• Take today's date, is it before or after your birthday this year?
• If it's after, you're one year older
• If it's before, you're two... until your birthday. Remember you age on your birthday in the west.
• Just remember on January the 31st everyone will be two years older until their next birthday...

Learning Korean... How to study korean, how to improve your Korean 5

In the last couple of posts I talked about books and strategies that can help you improve your Korean on your own. Here is a summary of the resources I use, and some other tips too.

Reference Resources:

• Korean Grammar for international Learners (yonsei university)
• An English Korean dictionary (the longer the entries the better)

Books which help (click on the links for details):

• Beginner Level: 신나는 한글shin-na-neun hangeul (eduaha.com / 아하교육): teaches alphabet and basic vocab
• Elementary level: 국어 읽기 1 & 2guk-eo ilg-ki 1&2 (미래엔컬처그룹 / http://cutis.mest.go.kr) - basic reading: vocab and short sentences
• Pre-intermediate-Intermediate level: 한국문화 77hanguk mun-hwa 77 (랭기지플러스) short paragraphs about Korean culture
• Intermediate level: 1 학년 교과서 전래동화first year fairytales: fairytales and stories. Harder because of the old-fashioned content
• Intermediate/Upper Intermediate level: 지식 사전ji-shik sajeon (도서칠판 휴버트): great little book of 200 word passages.

General tips for language learning

• Confidence. Always be confident
• An open mind. Nothing is fixed in language and there are countless exceptions. Don't remember the rules, remember what breaks the rules
• Learn from mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, what you need to do is learn from them. Don't worry if you make a mistake! Worry if you keep on making it
• Awareness. Always be aware of what you and others are saying. every time you hear or say something strange make a mental note of it. You will learn a lot like this.
• Take every opportunity. Every oppportunity there is to speak or practise, use it. That means speaking to anyone, doing homework, answering questions in class. Whenever you can speak or write or read Korean do it.
• Make friends with native speakers. Not only do you really experience the culture and language through them they can act as dictionaries and teachers. Without them, you will never learn Korean properly
• Don't obsess about grammar Grammar is not language, it is a system for understanding language. In itself its pointless so forget about it when it's too hard.
• Enjoy it! Find something you love about the language and focus on that. You and your mind will change for ever (and for the better!)

And finally

Textbooks, workbooks, exercise books and grammar books are totally and utterly useless except when attending a class. Never waste your money on these if you're not going to go to a class which requires them.

Learning Korean... How to study korean, how to improve your Korean 4

I wrote about the little yellow book 한국문화 77hanguk munhwa 77 and how it gets much easier the more you read it. I was getting towards the end and I decided I wanted to try and expose myself to some "real" Korean. This means not Korean written for foreigners, but Korean written for Koreans.

I had a few spare minutes in a train station, so I checked out the kids section in the bookshop. I was looking for something with lots of pictures but also a good amount of text. And as luck would have it, I found a book of folktales aimed at first year elementary kids. It had everything I wanted. I could understand all the grammar, I just needed to check up on some of the vocabulary and I could read it before bed!

When I finished 한국문화 77hanguk munhwa 77 I wanted something a little more "relevant" to modern life, and a little more mature than a fairytale book. Luckily my friend had recently bought this little gemhe got it at emart:

At the beginning this book was hard, especially in terms of vocabulary... but as with the everything, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. This book is the best for learning Korean I have encountered because:

• it has short texts (about 200 words in length)
• The contents are really interesting: little facts and myths about science, history, modern life, culture
• Everything is arranged by chapters: science, history, medicine etc. so if you read one little passage after the other, the same vocabulary is repeated, and they become progressively easier to understand and require less dictionary work
• it's aimed at young adults (ie me) so the language is not archaic, childish or wildly complicated and technical
• It's written for Koreans so the Korean is natural and unedited.
• It's small so you can take it wherever you go - notice the wear and tear. I spend a lot of time in the subway so I read it there, adding up to about 60-80 minuted of reading 3 times a week!

Since this book is aimed at Koreans, it can be a little challenging at points, I started reading it also about 6 or 7 months in, but now after 9 months I can read about 3 passages in less than 40 minutes! I would recommend that if you really can't understand the first text (using a dictionary of course) to put it down, and try again a little later.

Learning Korean... How to study korean, how to improve your Korean 3

In the last two posts I wrote a short guide on how to use a few materials to help you improve your Korean. These are the beginner levels. Once you've studied Korean for 3-4 months, it's time to upgrade.

By this stage you should be able to:

• Read basic Korean texts
• Have conversations about the weather, the future, your favourite films etc.
• Talk to people in casual environments: restaurants, bars
• Understand whole sentences or dialogues in films and songs
• Ask for and understand directions
• Make long sentences using different endings like -지만jiman, -는데-neun-dae, -니-ni etc. etc.

If you can do these things, that's fantastic! But it means the first stage is over and you have to work even harder and you now have no excuse not to speak Korean all the time! For study alone time I recommend this book:

I started reading it about 3-4 months into the course and at the beginning it was difficult. I persevered, reading it in the subway every day and using my little phone dictionary, writing the new vocab in pencil next to the new words. By the end it was so easy I could read one of the little texts in about 5 minutes! The satisfaction is amazing.

It's aimed at TOPIK students who want level 3 and each page has a little cartoon and Korean story about Korean culture. It's really fun, informative and best of all each little text is short enough for it not to be boring. You can buy it in any big bookshop.

Learning Korean... How to study korean, how to improve your Korean 2

In this post I wrote some tips for beginners of Korean. This next post is for people who have studied for 2-3 months.

At this stage you should be able to:

• identify words and short phrases in songs, conversation, films etc.
• make short sentences about today, tomorrow and yesterday
• read and write short sentences and even paragraphs
• Talk to Koreans on a very basic level (ordering food or saying hello etc.)

As you can see I've gone from a kindergarten book that focuses on writing only letters to elementary level 1. The first book (국어 읽기 1-1gook-eo ilk-ki 1-1 / Korean reading 1-1) is much easier than the second (국어 읽기 1-2gook-eo ilk-ki 1-2 / Korean reading 1-2), but there are lots of great stories with pictures. I have to admit, even after 2 months I couldn't understand very much of it, but it was good to encounter some real Korean. Just keep trying and you'll be amazed when suddenly it becomes easy!

Also there's a grammar reference book. This can be very helpful or totally useless depending on how you use it. This is a reference book. Use it when you come across a grammatical ending you don't understand and look it up in this book. Do not use it to learn new grammar, do not use it as a text book and read it from beginning to end. You will just get confused and learn nothing. There's a long explanation for why this is, so if you want to get in touch and I will explain it.