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.

How to talk to yourself in Korean

I don't want to write another post about today being slow, but it was slow... We practised the forms which go with the "plain style" (Korean grammar for international learners, Yonsei university press). Basically sticking -ㄴ/는다-n/-neunda on the end of verbs thus removing any kind of respect form endings. Interestingly the -시--shi- is maintained, and even more interestingly in the first person only the pronoun "나"na / I is acceptable.

The teacher told us that this form is generally used in writing, especially in newspapers and other accounts. According to my grammar book it is a form of paraphrasing, ie not relating the story directly, but rather indirectly. Note how in German and Italian the subjunctive can be used in similar contexts.

However 1st person stories in this style are permissible. Another European point of comparison would be from English grammar, teaching all verbs with their particle "to" eg. "to eat" rather than "eat"

Perhaps though, the most interesting aspect of this form is that it used for talking to yourself. As you have special forms for talking to older, younger, more important and less important people in Korean, there is also a form for having "one on one" conversation!

I've often heard Koreans saying quite loudly, but not to anyone: "춥다"chupda / It's cold and "맛있겠다"mashigetta / that looks delicious!. Often though this is in a group of friends, and often also when the conversation lulls. This is something which is also common to the Japanese (apparently). I have always been a little confused as to how to respond, but I suppose the very nature of this form is that it requires no response!

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!