Korean Basics: I like xxx /-ing / to... 좋아 해요

Expressing you like something in Korean is relatively straight forward. You just say the thing you like and then put the the verb 좋아 해요jo-a-heyo at the end. You can also attach an optional 을/를 the noun.

• I like kimchi -> 김치(를) 좋아해요kimchi(reul) jo-a-heyo
• I like beer -> 맥주(를) 좋아해요mekju(reul) jo-a-heyo
• I like football -> 축구(를) 좋아해요chuk-gu(reul) jo-a-heyo.

But what if you want to say you like "doing" something. Basically when you want to use a verb instead of the noun. That's pretty easy. You take the verb stem and drop the -다-da: 먹다 -> 먹-meogda->meog- and then add 는 것(을)-neun got(seul). So it becomes 먹는 것(을)meog-neun got(seul)

• I like eating kimchi -> 김치 먹는 것(을) 좋아해요kimchi meogneun got(seul) jo-a-heyo
• I like drinking beer -> 맥주 마시는 것(을) 좋아해요mekju mashineun geot (-eul) jo-a-heyo
• I like playing football -> 축구 하는 것(을) 좋아해요chuk-gu ha-neun got(seul) jo-a-heyo.

The reasons Why Korean has so many words 4: Social Reasons Again

Last time I discussed how Korean society used to be caste dominated and how each caste had their own "language" which became part of modern Korean with the arrival of democracy. But even with democracy, Korean society and language continued to be layered.

That's right, it's still layered by age. So you still need all the polite and respectful duplicate words to talk to older people. And older people need to use all the duplicate words to talk down to younger people. Not to mention all the words they use to talk amongst themselves!

Old people, who do not have so much contact with popular culture, use old words for things which young people would use English words for nowadays. Young and old people alike will use special words and phrases, on purpose, in order to show their age and status. And this is another reason why Korean has so many words.

If you want to talk to older or more important people than you, here are the most common polite forms (honorific or humilific) of normal words:

• 자다ja-da / sleep - > 주무시다ju-mu-shida / honorific of sleep
• 있다itt-da / there is, stay, be -> 계시다gye-shida / honorific of there is, stay, be
• 아프다a-peu-da / it hurts -> 편찮으시다pyeon-chan-eu-shi-da / honorific of it hurts
• 죽다juk-da / to die -> 돌아가시다do-ra-ga-shi-da / honorific of to die
• 주다juda / give -> 드리다deu-ri-da / humilific of give
• 데리다dae-ri-da / give someone a lift -> 모시다mo-shi-da / humilific of give someone a lift
• 만나다man-na-da / meet -> 뵙다bwep-da / humilific of meet
• 밥bap / rice -> 진지jin-ji / honorific of rice
• 집jip / house -> 댁dek / honorific of house
• 이름i-reum / name -> 성함seong-ham / honorific of name
• 나이na-i / age -> 연세yeon-sae / honorific of age
• 안내an-ne / wife -> 부인bu-in / honorific of wife
• 말mal / word -> 말씀mal-sseum / honorific of word
• 사람/명saram/myeong / person -> 분bun / honorific of person

The reasons Why Korean has so many words 3: Social Reasons

Last time I discussed how many, many Korean words come from other cultures. However, many many Korean words are also a product of Korean culture and social history too.

Much like India, Korea had a caste system. As a cultural-Brit, I always assumed a caste-system was much like a class-system. Basically, top, middle bottom. What a European way of thinking! Caste-systems are far more complicated than this. You have upper and lower and middle castes, but each caste is more of a represtantion of your specific role in society, not a designation of wealth.
Your job or rather your father's job decided your caste. Basically manual labourers were in the bottom layers of society, but each different job was considered higher or lower than the next. People never intermarried even at those levels. It wasn't just princesses and paupers who couldn't see each other. It was carpenters and masons who couldn't get married. These strict, clear distinctions created a very distinctly layered society.

This solid layering created a society where the only caste mixing took place when trading or doing business. Each caste would have spoken their own language to same-caste-members. There wasn't just "one Korean". But, there wasn't simply a "common language" either. When communicating with higher or lower caste members, people used language specifically designed to talk up or down to people. Just look at all the different speech levels in use today.

So historically, the Korean language had many different branches spoken by many different people. When Korea became a democracy in the 1990s, the caste-layers were blended into one new society. As social barriers broke down, suddenly, all the language and words which were only used by one caste became part of a much larger language which is modern Korean today, growing and multiplying the number of words.

Footnote 1: I am talking about official Korean here, the Korean which is taught to foreigners. There are still many different kinds of Korean.

Footnote 2: Just because the caste system was abolished by no means does this mean the wealth was redistrubted. Generally 양반yang-ban / the top or warrior and scholar caste still have all the money, they just don't wear the hats any more!

The reasons Why Korean has so many words 2: English & 한자 (hanja) the hidden terror behind Korean words

Last time we saw that the very nature of Korean is to have many words because Korean doesn't really use patterns to create meaning. As a result of this, Korean is extremely open to new words from other languages.

Anyone who is familiar with Korea has been baffled, amused, concerned and surprised by the huge amount of English words that have come to Korean and are in every day use. With America as the only superpower and political antithesis to China, Koreans have embraced many aspects of their culture and language.

But long ago, when the world was a different place, Koreans were doing the same thingno surprise here with language. Back then China was the political and cultural centre of Asia. So naturally Korean is full of Chinese too (I've heard about 50% of the words). Before Korean had an alphabet and even after Korean had an alphabet, everything was written in Chinese characters. In a similar way like Latin influencing European languages Chinese did the same thing.

Originally these words came to the language through scholars, traders and politicians (the educated and therefore high classes). So more often than not there is a "pure" Korean equivalent to a word of Chinese origin, which the lower classes would have in common use, resulting in two words with the same meaning.

Even nowadays suffering Korean children are made to memorise countless Chinese characters which form the backbone of so many words. But there is a logic to this, much like English becomes Koreanised So have these characters and Koreans use them as building blocks for making new words which have no Chinese equivalent.

Korean needs words to create meaning. So by absorbing and adapting foreign words they can satisfy that need, often resulting often in duplicate and triplicate synonyms.

Tomorrow one more reason why Korean has so many words!

The reasons Why Korean has so many words 1

As a student of Korean you can go pretty crazy with the sheer number of synonyms a word can have, and you should learn them all! I first came across this when I started learning family members. For example there are more than three words for wife: 부인, 아내, 집사람bu-in, an-e, jip-sa-ram or child: 자식, 아이(애), 어린이ja-shik, a-i(e), eo-ri-ni. And these are just ones I've heard in conversation or come across in class!

It doesn't stop with nouns or even people, sometimes it seems like there are at least three words for everything in Korean. And by three words, I mean three words that are used every day. Know any other words for children in English? How about progeny or offspring? These are words used in horror films or dusty tomes. (look! another word for book!).

So why is that there are so many more words in use in Korean?

The underlying reason for this is the nature of Korean. Korean words do not change according to their role in the sentence.
In fact the only words which change at all are verbs, and they only change a little. Compare that to English with over 100 irregular verbs. And then bear in mind there are also irregular nouns in English - what's the plural of man, woman, child, person? Or how about adjectives? big - bigger, good - better. This does not happen at all in Korean.

However the point that I am making is not that there are exceptions in English. The point is that there are patterns in English. Korean has very few patterns. So instead of meaning coming from patterns, meaning comes from words and particles

자식ja-shik means something more like "my child(ren)" so you wouldn't use it for some children you saw on the street. In English we just attach "my" to show this relationship or "some" to show that there is no relatiosnhip. Words like "my" "some" or "any" can be attached to any noun and always mean the same thing. ie They follow a pattern. Korean doesn't have this pattern, so in every case of "my" you need a new word.

On the other hand 어린이eo-ri-ni is more of an official word for child. So you see childcare centres called "어린이 집"eo-ri-ni jip / children's house or "children's" tickets as opposed to "adults". So often 어린이eo-ri-ni has a plural sense to it. In English we would just change child to children.

So where English uses an established pattern to change the meaning of a word, Korean instead uses a specific word for each different situation. And that's one reason why Korean has so many words!

In the next post. More reasons why Korean has so many words.

-와/-과, -이랑/-랑, -하고: and, and, and and! (Meaning)

this is a continuation of this post

-하고-hago is used to join nouns together in a list. There is no relationship between them. So imagine you're looking in the fridge and you see rice and kimchi, you don't want to eat them together, you're just saying they're there. Also -하고-hago is used more in writing than speaking.

-랑/-이랑-rang/-irang is used in speaking, and you will often here it in the restaurant when making an order. It has a more general meaning than -하고-hago in the sense it can be used to denote some kind of relationship between people:

• 수민이랑 시내에 갔어요Su-Min-i-rang shi-ne-ae gass-eo-yo / I went to town with Su-Min - Here it means "with" because it's a person (you could also say me and Sumin went to town)

-와/-과-wa/-gwa, is used in writing instead of -랑/-이랑-rang/-irang, but generally it has an extra meaning, and is therefore a little different. When you use -와/-과-wa/-gwa you are saying that the two things are linked or have a relatiosnhip:

• 밥과 김치bab-gwa kimchi does mean "Rice and kimchi" but it more exactle means "rice with kimchi"

If you look in the fridge and say "there's rice with kimchi" it means that they are mixed together! In English you can say "I like Kimchi and rice" which can mean "rice with kimchi" but in Korean 밥과 김치bab-gwa kimchi only means "rice with kimchi".

Here are some more examples of -와/-과-wa/-gwa showing a relationship between two things

• 동생과 싸웠어요dong-seng-gwa ssa-weo-sseo-yo means "I fought with my brother"
• 대구와 써울 달라요degu-wa seoul dal-la-yo means "Daegu and Seoul are different" (compared with)
• 친구와 이야기 했어요chin-gu-wa i-ya-gi hess-eo-yo means "I spoke to (with) my friend" not "I told my friend..."

So -와/-과-wa/-gwa is used when comparing 2 things and to emphasize that there is an exchange or a relationship. In fact -와/-과-wa/-gwa is nearly always used in conjunction with words 함께ham-ggae and 같이ga-chi which roughly mean "together".

-와/-과, -이랑/-랑, -하고: and, and, and and! (Grammar)

Today we are going to see how to put different nouns together, essentially the word "and". There are many ways in Korean to say this word and the difference is quite subtle. Today we will look at the three most common ones: -하고-hago, -와/-과-wa/-gwa, and -랑/-이랑-rang/-irang.

First of all lets look quickly at where to put these particles. You can attach -하고-hago to anything without changing it:

• rice and kimchi = 밥하고 김치bap-hago kimchi
• beer and soju = 맥주하고 소주mekju-hago soju

So -하고-hago is only different from "and" in the sense that instead of it being a separate word like "and" it attaches to the first noun.

-와/-과-wa/-gwa and -랑/-이랑-rang/-irang are slightly different because depending on the preceding word they change a little. If the first word ends in a consonant (바침ba-chim / the bottom character in a syllable, so basically a consonant)) then you use -과-gwa or -이랑-rang/-irang. If it doesn't you use -와-wa or -랑-rang

• rice and kimchi = 밥과 김치bab-gwa kimchi or 밥이랑 김치bab-i-rang kimchi
• beer and soju = 맥주와 소주mek-ju-wa soju or 맥주랑 소주mekju-rang soju

Notice how 밥bap / rice ends in "ㅂthe Korean equivalent of "b"", a consonant, and 맥주mekju / beer ends in "우the Korean equivalent of "oo" / "u"", a vowel.

So all these particles attach to the first noun, rather than being a separate word, but they still go in the same place as "and" in English. But how are they different?

Click here to find out!

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!

Basics: Speech levels and politeness 3 -입니다 / immida

In the last post we saw how -요-yo is used to show that you are lower on the scale of life than the person you are talking to. Which means that even when used improperly, it can't be offensive, but it can be funny.

Today we are going to look at the formal -입니다-immi-da.
Remember who this is used for? generally it's people you don't want to or don't have a personal relationship with. That's bosses, colleagues, people in banks, clients, or even strangers (depending on you and your personality).

BasicallyThis is the very basic rule, verbs actually change a little
depending on the stem, but here these are just examples.
If you want the exact rules go to the links section, to form it you drop the -다-da from the base form and add -입니다-immi-da

• 살다sal-da becomes 삽니다-yo
• 마시다ma-shi-da becomes 마십니다ma-shimm-ida

It is said that boys use this ending more than girls and girls use -요-yo more than boys. This is because (don't start raging please feminists) girls are lower on the scale than boys. So when boys of the same age meet in a formal context, they don't need to say "im lower than you" and girls are more inclined to. As a male, I kind of understand this. I don't want to be cute and friendly to everyone. If I want to get things done, I get them done, I don't need to be your friend.

In everyday speech you encounter this in introductions, because you don't know the people you're speaking to, and often you don't need to endear yourself to them either. But if you do establish a relationship, then you no longer need to use this ending. If you do continue using it, it can mean that you don't feel close to the person you're talking to.

Speech levels and politeness 4: 아/어 -a/-eo - close friends and children

So far we've seen to very different endings. One which shows that you respect the person you're talking to, and one which shows that even you respect them, you don't have any personal interest in them. This final ending is used mainly with the familiar

Familiar Means people you know very well and people who are a lot younger than you. That means if you're in your 20s, 30s, 40s and perhaps even 50s it basically means kids only. If you're a Korean it includes foreigners and if you're in your 50s+ it means whippersnappers.
Basically you take off the -다-da and add the -아 or -어-a or -eo.

• 가다ga-da to go becomes 가ga
• 싸우다ssa-u-da / to fight becomes 싸워ssa-weo / I fight.
  

Unlike -요-yo this ending can be offensive, because you are saying to someone "you are lower than me" as opposed to "I am lower than you". That's why they generally don't teach this at the beginning of courses.

It will be used a lot to you, but don't use it back, and dont be offended. Koreans are being nice when they use it to you. For some reason they think that other endings are harder for foreigners to understand.
The only time you use it should be with children. Koreans often use it with extremely close friends (people the have known for years), family and lovers. So I suppose if you get lucky, go right ahead.

These are the three endings which you will have most contact with. If you come to Korea, you will hear others, but once you've mastered these the other ones will follow logically. Even for a foreigner these are easy to understand, it's using them that it's difficult!

Basics: Speech levels and politeness 2: 요 or -yo

In the last post we saw some different people you might talk to, and the terms formal, informal, familiar. Remember who we might use them with?
Today, we're going to look at the actual endings

The most general ending which foreigners use is -요-yo. This is generally used in informal and familiar situations. So you would use it with your friends, family and when chatting to strangers.
Remember the base form of verbs? BasicallyThis is the very basic rule, verbs actually change a little
depending on the stem, but here these are just examples.
If you want the exact rules go to the links section Just drop the -다-da depending on the verb add -아-/-어--a-/-eo- and then the -요-yo.

• 사랑 하다sarang-hada / to love becomes 사랑 해요sarang he-yo / I love you
• 먹다meogda / to eat becomes 먹어요meog-eo-yo / I eat

This ending is generally taught as the default ending to students, because it cant be offensive to anyone. But with children, it is inappropriate. Why? well that's because with this ending, you are putting yourself lower than the person you're speaking to.
On the Korean scale of life, children are lower. Imagine being the king and bowing to a random kid who walks into your castle? It's pretty much the same thing when you use -요-yo with a child.

But when you use it with a stranger or someone the same age, and they use it back you are both on the same level because essentially you're bowing to each otehr. Imagine a disgusting lovey-dovey couple saying "I love you" / "no I love you more" back and forth to each other. When you use -요-yo you're saying "I respect you" / "no, I respect you" back and forth to each other. The point being in the first sentence "my love is equal" and the second example "our respect is equal".

Korean basics: verbs 2 / Speech levels & politeness 1

So there are two kinds of verbs, descriptive and normal. In their usual forms they are identical. They both take tense endings and politeness endings. Which is what we will look at today.

Speech levels or politeness endings are very important in Korean, and can be very confusing. But the first rule of communication is "don't panic" (that should be the first rule about pretty much anything new). But actually, If you think about it, you do actually change the way you speak depending on you talk to, even in English.
You don't say "alright mate"US English "waddup my beeee-atch to your boss do you? It might be strange to say it to someone you've just met too. But it would be ok to say it to your friend. You probably wouldn't say it to your Dad, and you're pretty weird if you say it to your Grandad. And what if you said it a five year old?

Korean has exactly the same situations, but instead of only using different words or intonation, accent, etc, Korean always puts an ending on the verb. looking back at the different people you would/wouldn't say "alright mate" to we have:

• Your boss
• Someone you've just met
• your friends/peersyou'll see why I used this in a little while
• Your parents & grandparents
• children

Generally the words formal, informal, and familiar are used to describe the endings, Which of the situations above fall into those categories?

That's right! Formal is for situations where there is not yet a personal relationship. Maybe one will develop, but maybe it would be inappropriate, ie with your boss. So logically you would add a formal ending in that situation.

Familiar is where you do have a personal relationship with someone. So that's your friends and family

Well what about informal? That's when things get complicated, because in English there's one thing that we don't really take into account. And that's..... age! Informal applies to situations when you speak to someone who is the same age or younger, but you don't know them well. You're not going to discuss taxes and politics with a child are you?

Korean basics 1: verbs

Every single book about Korean that I have seen so far starts off with the awfully confusing and painfully wrong statement that Korean word order is BLAH BLAH BLAH.
I am not going to do the same thing. So I will come back to word order another time.

Perhaps the biggest difference between Korean and European languages is the way verbs work. In Korean there are 2 distinct kinds of verbs, verbs and descriptive verbs.

Verbs function a lot like (but not exactly like) verbs in European languages. They take a variety of endings and/or particles and generally (not always) describe things that you do or states you are in.

Descriptive Verbs do not exist in European languages. Descriptive verbs describe the nature of something, but they are still verbs. Koreans and most language learners WRONGLY use the term “adjective” to describe them. These are not adjectives!!! THERE ARE NO ADJECTIVES IN KOREAN. If you see them as adjectives, you WILL NEVER LEARN KOREAN PROPERLY. Why do you think Koreans find adjectives in English so difficult? Because they see them as verbs, that’s why they always leave off “is/are” etc. For a Korean “to eat” and “to be hungry” are in the same grammatical category and therefore don’t need a verb (to be).

Got it? One more time. There are no adjectives in Korean.

All verbs have a very simple base form. This base form is used in dictionaries and in the plain style. Basically it's the verb plus -다-da. So in a dictionary you would find 예쁘다ye-ppeu-da / to be pretty - yes this is a descriptive verb or 먹다meog-da / to eat - this is a normal verb

Fundamentally different to European languages are the verb endings. Where most European verbs change to indicate who is speaking, Korean verbs change the most depending on who you are speaking to.

So there are four things to remember while you learn Korean:

• There are two kinds of verbs
• Verbs are about who you are talking to, not who is talking
• There are no adjectives in Korean
• verbs have a base form, ending in -다-da which is mainly used in dictionaries