The difference between 못 and 안- 2

In the last post about 못mot / not and 안-an- / not we looked at using it when you talk about yourself. It's important to note that when talking about other things 안-an- / not is used much more commonly.

• 비 안와요bi an-wayo / it's not raining
• 영국 날씨가 안좋아요Yeonguk Nal-shi-ga anjo-ayo / English weather is not good
• 수업 아직도 안마쳤어요su-ob ajik-do an-ma-cheoss-eo-yo / class hasn't finished yet

안-an- / not is used in the case of other things and often people because you the reasons for it not happening are not external. You can't really explain why it isn't raining, or why the English weather is bad, and there is no particular reason whey class isn't finished yet.
Obviously when talking about other people, you often don't know their inner motivations and reasoning, so 안-an- / not is more appropriate. However if you do know and what explain that someone is late for reasons beyond their control, it's just as applicable to say 안-an- / not.

• 민수 안왔어요minsu an-wass-eo-yo / Minsu didn't come You don't know why he isn't here, because you don't know the circumstances
• 민수 못 왔어요minsu mot wass-eo-yo / Minsu didn't come You know the circumstances and why he didn't come. In some cases you could translate this as "Minsu couldn't come"

The difference between 못 and 안-

I wish someone had explained this to me at the beginning. Normally my teacher would just correct me every time without explanation when I used either 못mot / not or 안-an- / not. Someone had half explained that 못mot / not means something more like "can't/couldn't" but it didn't seem to fit. After all, you don't normally answer the question "did you see Phil" with "no, I couldn't see him." The answer would be "no, I didn't see him"

In Korean, however, you answer this question with 못mot / not, not 안-an- / not. The difference, in theory is pretty simple. In practice, for English speakers it's a little more difficult. We don't think about this circumstances of why something "isn't" nearly as much as Koreans. For us, something simply "is" or "isn't". But basically put:

• 못mot / not is used for when something didn't happen because of external factors
• 안-an- / not is used for something which didn't happen because of you, you didn't want to, or you didn't choose to

Imagine your teacher asked you: "Have you done your homework?" If you hadn't done it how would you answer? In English you just say "I didn't do it because...", but in Korean if you say: "숙제 안했어요sukje an-haesseoyo / I didn't do my homework" it means you didn't want to, and there is no real excuse. If you say "숙제 못 했어요sukje mot haesseoyo / I didn't do my homework" it means there is a reason that you didn't do it. So which one would you answer with?

Here are some other phrases where 못mot / not is more common than 안-an- / not:

• 비터 만났어요? / 아니요, 못 만났어요peter mannass-eo-yo? / aniyo, mot mannass-eo-yo / Did you meet Peter? No I didn't. - you couldn't meet him because you were sick
• 김치 많이 먹어요? / 아니요, 못 먹어요kim-chi mani mog-eo-yo? / aniyo, mot mog-eo-yo / do you eat a lot of kimchi? No I don't - you don't eat it because it's spicy
• 장학금 받았어요? / 아니요, 못 받았어요jang-hak-geum padass-eo-yo? / aniyo mot padass-eo-yo / did you get a scholarship? No I didn't. - you didn't get it because you grades weren't good enough

Two of those sentences would be strange if you used 안-an- / not. And one would be ok. Which ones?
That's right! If someone asks you: 김치 많이 먹어요?kim-chi mani mog-eo-yo? Do you eat a lot fo kimchi, you can answer 아니요, 안먹어요aniyo, am-mog-eo-yo / do you eat a lot of kimchi? No I don't. But that would mean that you don't eat it because it's spicy, you don't eat it because you choose not or don't want to.

So for the other two sentences, especially with number three, you can't really use 안-an- / not at all. Who doesn't want to get a scholarship? And why did you choose not to meet Peter? You don't like him?

I hope that's clear! Easy to understand, but a little complicated to put into practice. Now every time I hear 못mot / not or 안-an- / not Im going to be thinking about this, and then try to use it myself.

Korean Basics: making a sentence

Maybe you can remember back to school days, or you’re an English teacher yourself? A sentence in English always needs at least 2 things, and normally more. But the two main things are:

• a subject – they, she, it, the cat, a bird, my evil twinetc. etc.
• a verb – eat(s) / swim(s) / run(s) / murdered etc. etc. (a doing word)

So “yes!” is not a sentence and “hungry” is not a sentence either, although you can kind of get what they mean. But what happens if you say “love”? Can you understand the meaning? Who do you love? Who loves you? Do you hate love? Is love great? can your evil twin love? It’s confusing, and it definitely is not a sentence.

In the last basics post I talked about verb endings and politeness. When we use them, it means that we are talking to someone. In English, it's the oppposite, our sentences show that someone is talking, that's why we always need a subject. Without a subject it's difficult to guess who is talking (see above).

Love in Korean is 사랑하다sarang-hada. This is the base form (remember) So when we put an ending on it means that there must be someone you're talking to because you are either showing, or not showing respect.
So imagine your mum is in front of you and you say 사랑해요sarang-hae-yo. In English this literally translates as "love" But of course, if your mum's in front of you, a better translation would be "I love you".

Korean, unlike English, does not need a subject, and often it does not need an object either (what comes after a verb, not before, like the "you" in "I love you"). You can work it out from the situation. So any verb with an ending on it, is in fact a sentence in Korean. So take any verb and put an ending on it! Congratulations! You're speaking Korean in full sentences

But of course sometimes you need to put these words in. Imagine there are three girls/boys in front of you. You want to tell one you love them. If you just say 사랑해요sarang-hae-yo they'll all think you love them!

Why Koreans translate so strangely

I met one of my friends after dinner once (in Korea), and he was visibly upset. He said “There was seaweed in my porridge!” you might think that this is a culinary travesty like jam in fried egg sandwiches, but this time it wasn’t. It was the result of mistranslation

What my friend had, had absolutely nothing to do with porridge. It was something closer to risotto called 죽juk. Rice cooked a long time, served with savoury flavourings like kimchi or octopus or seaweed. But all Koreans call 죽juk “porridge”. You actually see it written outside 죽juk restaurants

The same goes with 찌개jjigg-ae. Much to the disappointment of new arrivals when they look at a menu, they see this translated as stew. Suddenly potatoes and tender meat in a thick sauce come to mind. You couldn’t be further from the truth. This is soup, plain and simple, albeit delicious.

Of course there are cultural reasons as to why all Koreans categorise these foods like this (I have to admit, I once saw 찌개jjig-ae called soup), but that’s for another time. This is pure conjecture, but I believe that these terms were coined pre-50s.

Porridge is not exactly a commonly eaten food, and to be honest, I am the only person who has such happy feelings when I think about stew. These are both foods of the past, which have been replaced by fancy things like "cereals" and "tagine".
I think that these words entered Korean when, either, the Americans occupied the South in the 1950s, or it could have taken place even earlier with the first missionaries. The Korean language has adopted these words so much that when you say (even in English) “찌개jjig-ae is not stew” no one believes you!

Korean doesnt just create Korean, and it doesn't just create Konglish, it even creates English. These odd translations remain to this day cemented in the Korean language, and will continue to confuse foreigners long into the future.

Exclamation particles day 3: –잖아-

The final exclamation particle we will look at is –잖아-jan-a (on all verbs). This one means that it is obvious or known to the speaker and to the person being spoken to. ie, it means “duh”. So remember, just like you wouldn’t say “duh” to your grandmother, never say it to an 아줌마/아저씨ajumma/ajo-sshi - middle aged man/woman etc. in Korea!

• A: 스님이 왜 고기 안 먹어요?seu-nim-i wae gogi an meogeo-yo? / why doesnt the monk eat meat?
  B: 불교 믿잖아요!bul-gyo mi-jjan-a-yo / because he's buddhist, duh! (B is telling A: you already know this, it’s obvious)
• A: 민영이 왜 인기가 많아?Why is Min-Young popular??
  B: 에쁘잖아!yae-ppeu-jan-a! / Because she's beautiful (B is telling A: you know what she looks like, duh!)
• A: 왜 돈 많이 들어요?wae don man-i deu-reo-yo? / Why is it expensive
  B: 영국이잖아요!yeong-guk-i-jan-a! / We're in England of course! (B is basically telling A, “look around dumbass”)

Ok, so it doesn't always mean duh, another softer translation would be "can't you see"? or "don't you know?" You probably wouldn't say that to old people either though!

Also remember, it isn't just for answering questions (the questions just give a bit of context) It is for stating the obvious Which is often followed by a dumb or unthoughtout question.

Koreans use exclamation particles a lot when speaking and if you ever want to come close to sounding like a native speaker, you have to too. Also when you learn the endings, remember them with a surprised or shocked or happy etc. intonation. Their meaning will not be difficult to remember and using them won’t be as hard. Like the smile, the sound of exclamation is pretty universal.

Exclamation particles: -네- day 2

Continuing on the theme of "exclamation particles" (I just made that up, sounds good doesn't it?), today's post is about –네--nae- (on all verbs). Although it has a very similar meaning to –는군--neungun-it’s actually less restrictive, because you can say this when you realise or learn something new, even when you can’t see it firsthand.

• 이 차는 빠르네요!i cha-neun bba-reu-nae-yo / that car's fast! (perhaps your looking at a picture, rather than driving)
• 진짜 맛있네요!jin-jja mashi-nne-yo! / that's really delicious (someone has told you that it’s very good, and you agree)
• 비가 오네요!biga d-nae-yo! / it's raining (maybe you’re not looking outside)

But of course, this can be used when you experience something too, and it also has a more formal flavour to it.

Coming up tomorrow, my personal favourite, –잖아-jan-a

Exclamation particles -군-, -네- & -잖아- (Day 1)

One of the biggest differences between Korean and European languages is the use of particles or endings where a European language speaker would use intonation to give an added meaning to the word or phrase.

Just try saying this: “it’s raining”. That’s just a statement of fact. But what if you say “it’s raining” in a surprised tone of voice? Does the meaning change? Perhaps it means you’ve just looked outside and seen the rain. Or you’ve just woken up in your tent and your friend looks very wet. Try saying it in a disappointed tone of voice. What does it mean now? When you say this word using different intonation, you’re definitely not just imparting the fact that it is raining.

When we write, all intonation is lost, so as Europeans, we invented punctuation to help the reader understand. So when you see this: “it’s raining!” you understand surprise or happiness. When you see this “it’s raining?” you understand disappointment or disbelief (obviously not limited to these meanings, context helps you understand exactly what’s going on).

Koreans never needed punctuation because the words themselves change as well as the intonation. To better understand their function, see these endings as a spoken form of punctuation.

First let's look at the most common one:–는군--neungun- (on verbs) and –군--gun- (on descriptive verbs). In the past it’s always –았/-었군--at/-otgun, regardless of the type. You use this ending when you realise something you didn’t know already (surprise). The important thing to remember about this is that you only say it when you see it:

• 비가 오는군요!biga oneun-gun-yo / wow! it's raining! (you are looking out the window)
• 아직도 안왔군!ajikdo anwadgun-yo / damn, she still hasn't arrived(you look around the room, and see that she is not there yet)
• 사람이 많군요!saram-i man-gun-yo / There are lots of people here!(you've just arrived and there are more people than you expected)

Remember these endings are used in speaking or reported speaking, just like question marks and exclamation marks. It has no place in an essay or newspaper article.

Coming up tomorrow, -네--nae-

Baseball, Junk Food & why Koreans say "화이팅"

To all my (imaginary/non-existent) readers: I am sorry for not putting up any new posts recently. But to get into the habit of "bloggingI really hate this word, it sounds like what happens when you do too much poo in a toilet" I need to persevere. As Koreans would say "화이팅h-wa-eeting / what you say to encourage people or yourself!"So I thought I would do a cultural post...

Korean is full of English words, it's even more full of Chinese words, and there's a noteable absence of Japanese words, although many words in Japanese are similar to Korean because they have a common Chinese root. Furthermore, Korean has some words in common with Japanese because of their English roots too, but even more interestingly some English words have entered Korean through Japanese.

The standard Korean romanisation and pronunciation of "f" is "ㅍpronounced like the "p" in "people". "Fast food" becomes 페스트 푸드"pest pood" / hehehehe or "fry" becomes "프라이"p-er-r-a-ee / not as funny etc. etc. Sticking to the theme of unhealthy dietary habits "French fries" can be written "후렌치 후라이hoo-rench-ee hu-ra-ee"" Here the "f" is changed to a "ㅎpronounced like "h" in "happy"". And "화이팅h-wa-eeting / what you say to encourage people or yourself!" is exactly the same. Which, if you haven't guessed already, is actually a mangled "fighting".

The reason for this variation is pretty simple. When English words come to Korean from Japanese, they maintain their Japanese pronunciation. Just as Korean has no "f" sound, neither does Japanese, but Japanese renders "f" as an "h" sound. Every time you hear an "f" in an English word pronounced or written in this way in Korean, it means that the word has entered the language through Japanese.

The word "화이팅h-wa-eeting / what you say to encourage people or yourself!" in Korean is from baseball, and can be heard at any game. Although baseball is obviously an American export, popular in many of the USA's pseudo-colonies, baseball came to Korea much later than Japan. Because of the geographical closeness, cultural and political exchanges throughout history, baseball in Korea has been influenced, and even modelled on the Japanese version of the game. It is clear that "화이팅h-wa-eeting / what you say to encourage people or yourself!" orginated in Japanese.

The only place I've seen "후렌치 후라이hoo-rench-ee hu-ra-ee"" is on a sign in the cafeteria in the university. This not only dates the sign as this spelling is outdated, it shows that the Japanese brought French Fries to Korea before America, or at least before new transliteration rules. We can't just blame the Americans for exporting Junk food!

By looking simply at the pronounciation and transliteration of a word we can understand so much more than what it means. It can tell us about where the word came from or even a little about who is saying it.

English이란 어려워요!!!!

For a language that has so many words which change depending on speaker and person being spoken to, it's odd that the verbs to borrow and to lend are the same: 빌리다billida. How then do they distinguish them? The answer's quite easy, they use the verb 주다juda / give:

• I'm lending a pen is:볼펜 빌려 줘요ballpen billyo j-weo-yo(lit. I'm borrowing and giving a pen)
• I'm borrowing a pen is: 볼펜 빌려요ballpen billyo-yo

In English, "give" is a very uninteresting verb, but In Korean it has a grammatical function too. It essentially gives the idea that the subject of the verb is doing someone else a favour.

• 볼펜 사 주세요ballpen sa juse-yo - buy a pen for me! (lit. buy and give a pen)
• 볼펜 사세요ballpen sase-yo - buy a pen!

This is one reason why Koreans often struggle with the difference between to/for. They learn that "to" and "for" are both -에/-에게-ae/-aegae. But for once it's English that has a specific meaning. The preposition "for" in itself implies a favour, whereas the ending -에/-에게-ae/-aegae" just means "not the subject or object".

Many learners of Korean (are encouraged to) complain that Korean is difficult, but for once there isn't a specific verb for a specific situation! English is the difficult language. In fact, are there any European languages that use a totally different item of vocabulary? I can't think of any at the moment.

English이란 어려워요!oer-yeo-weo-yo / is difficult

거든(요)

-거든(요)-geodeunyo is a phrase that I remember hearing continuously since I have been in Korea. It's really stuck! Perhaps it's because it goes at the end of a sentence and it often stressed. According to the teacher it's just another way for giving a reason, but then of course why would they have it? There are a million words for "because" in Korean. Luckily I have the infinite resources of the internet and Korean acquaintances.

• Firstly it doesn't require a qualifying clause, it simply gives a stand-alone reason “Because I’m hot.”
• Secondly it is emphatic because of its position and intonation, so rather than meaning "because..." it means "it is because..."
• Thirdly it stands out because it gives the other person you're talking to a chance to respond. It has a conversational function as the Korean grammar dictionary translates it, you can insert a "you see."

Ultimately explaining it isn't enough. You need to use it, and listen out for it whenever you can!

Colours in Korean

As a young child exposed to the vulgarity of philosophy, I was posed the question is blue blue? Well of course it bloody is. I think the point was that everyone sees colours differently so blah blah blah. A lovely linguistic cliché is to discuss the fact that different languages cultures have different concepts of colour and don't have certain colours at all. I have not yet come across a language like this in my experience, so I can't comment (though someone told me that Latin colours were more about brightness.)

Anyway as you would guess, Korean has many words for colour and of course many different colours. A great similarity between English being the poetic '파루다'pareuda it is azure to "파랗다"parata it is blue. The former being used for only natural phenomena. Intriguingly, traffic lights, despite being the same here as in any country, are referred to as turning blue "파래 지다"parae jida and not green. As far as I've learnt there is no adjectival/verbal form for green! Philosophers please don't get too excited.

Furthermore it seems like the phrase "my hat is red" "내 모자가 빨간색이에요"nae mojaga bbalkanseki-ye-yo or "내 모자가 빨개요"nae mojaga bbalkayo mean exactly the same thing... Although I think it is more likely that their difference is the difference between "좋아요"jo-ayo / it is good and "좋아 해요"jo-a-heyo / I like it(it is good). One meaning something like "its nature is red" and the other "it is red". Anyway I don't really understand why Korean has so many verbal pairs like this, but the more I learn, the more (however slowly) I understand.

Slow Days

These past few days have been relatively slow. I am beginning to think that the Korean attitude to language is that it just as a set of unrelated phenomena that all have equal weight and value, and can only be learned individually. Don’t take my tone as critical or negative, it’s probably because I am sick!

The “grammar” points have basically been extensions of meaning in already learned forms. We have already studied the -지 않다-ji anta form which basically negates a verb, and we just recycled it as a question: 예쁘지 않아요?yeppeuji anayo? / she isn’t pretty? as opposed to 예쁘지 않아요yeppeuji anayo / she isn’t pretty. This seems to me to be totally logical and everyone has already been asking questions like this anyway, because it’s easier than inserting other question endings/particles.

Same with -는데-neunde, we recycled it again as -는데요neunde-yo. I shouldn’t complain because we got to practise this extremely flexible and useful ending which I still don’t understand fully. We just learned it as an ending to a sentence rather than as some kind of conjunction. Although I’m not sure what the difference is exactly, it probably is something like: “I don’t like strawberries though”. As opposed to “I don’t like strawberries, though I’m hungry.”

I suppose this kind of thoroughness helps students unfamiliar with grammatical forms and it might also help those who need the writing practice, but couldn’t we just learn something new instead… There’s so much I still have no clue about!

Just one of the reasons why I love learning Korean

It’s a bit long, but keep reading, and you might understand why I chose the title. By studying Korean at a university, I’m not just learning a set of words or a grammatical code by which to interpret them and I’m not just learning about Korean culture and my culture. I am also learning about how Koreans see their own language and culture and by extension all language and all culture.

Unsurprisingly the Korean text book is divided into the same sections in every chapter, one of which deals with grammar and another vocabulary. Today’s grammar was about turning verbs into nouns and using them as the subject of a sentence: “Swimming is difficult” as opposed to “I swim with difficulty”. This can be done in different ways in Korean, but today we dropped the -다-da and added -기-gi to the stem: 수영하다 > 수영하기suyonghada > suyonghagi / to swim > swimming. Then to make it clear it’s the subject added the subject particle -가ga. 수영하-기-가 어려워요suyongha-gi-ga oer-yeoweo-yo

In fact we had already learned this -기-gi form in the context of 때문에ddaemunae / because of . So 수영하기 때문에 피곤해요suyonghagi ddemunae pigonheyo becomes because of swimming I am tired (not great English, but you understand it!). Now as a student of European languages and culture, it seems obvious that 수영하기suyeonghagi / to swim can be used anywhere in a sentence where you would use a noun. As the subject, object, indirect object, following a preposition etc. etc. So I was a little confused.

Why teach it as the subject only. Can this -기-gi form only be used as the subject? My European brain was instantly applying some kind of order or grammitcal pattern to this and I began to question the the whole schema, why would they teach us this in only one case when you can learn all of them at once? (see how latin is taught for reference). So I asked the teacher “can -기-gi nouns only be the subject?”

Can you guess her answer? If you’re Korean you probably can, if you’re European, you probably can’t!

She told me “this(어렵다oer-yeopda / to be difficult) is an intransitive (descriptive) verb (ie, it takes only a subject eg. sleep), so it can only be the subject”. ARRRGHHH!!! She didn’t answer the question. She saw my problem in terms of only the example sentence. My question on the other hand dealt with rules and grammar, and not the example sentence.

This experience highlights the day-to-day communication breakdowns that occur when West meets East. In the context of language learning it specifically demonstrates how Eastern and Western views of language differ. Essentially for a Korean 수영하기suyonghagi / swimmingas subject, object etc. etc. is a different 수영하기suyonghagi / swimmingevery time. Where for the European it’s always a “gerund” (or whatever name we choose to give it). With these parallel views, everything must seem different, depending on the language you speak and the culture you grew up in. And that’s why I chose the title!