한국은 사랑 스럽다

2020-10-09 03:31:49 Let's celebrate Hangeul day today

Today, October 9th is Hangeul Day in South Korea to commemorate the invention of the country's native alphabet 'Hunminjeongeum', or so-called today's 'Hangeul', and to praise its excellency. Did you know that Hangeul is the only alphabet in the world where its invention date, inventor, and basic principles of the invention are known? Today, let's reflect on the meaning and values of Hangeul, which has about 600 years of history.

Interesting facts about Hangeul:

Hunminjeongeum was created by King Sejong the Great in 1443 (the 25th year of King Sejong's reign) and proclaimed in 1446.
Before the creation of Hangeul, Joseon borrowed Chinese characters, so only elites were able to read and write. The creation of Hangeul gave every people the power to express themselves in writing.
The consonants of Hunminjeoneum were designed after the physical morphology of mouth and tongue, and the vowels were designed after the shape of heaven, earth, and people.
In 1446, King Sejong the Great adopted Hunminjeongeum as the official subject of the civil service examination in order to solidify it as a national public character.
The original Haerye Edition of Hunminjeongeum is preserved at the Kansong Art Museum in Seongbuk-gu, Seoul. Open / Comment

2018-11-29 22:15:30 MAKING FRIENDS

● 친구가 되고 싶어요.
○ I want to be friends.

● 좋은 친구가 되었으면 좋겠어요.
○ I would like to be good friends with you.

● 그럼요. 우리는 친구가 될 수 있습니다.
● 그럼. 우리는 친구가 될 수 있어.
○ Sure, we can be friends.

● 친구 할래요?
○ Want a friend?

● 우리 친구해요.
○ Let's be friends!

● 친구가 되어서 기뻐요.
○ I'm glad to be friends.

● 좋은 친구가 되었으면 좋겠어요.
○ I am looking for nice friends.

● 펜팔 친구 했음 좋겠어요.
○ I need a penpal.

● 연락하고 지내자!
○ Keep in touch!

● 오래만에 들어본다.
○ Long time no hear.

● 내가 한국에 가면 잘 부탁해요.
○ When I come to Korea, please take care of me.

● 꼭 한국에서 만날 수 있었으면 좋겠어요.
○ I hope to see you in Korea.

● 나는 한국에 도착했을때 너에게 연락할 것입니다.
○ I will contact you once I arrive in Korea.

● 한국가면 반드시 연락할게요.
○ When I go to Korea I will definitely contact you.

● 한국가면 자주 돌아다니자.
○ I hope we can hang out when I come to Korea.

● 한국가면 우리가 자주 돌아다닐 수 있길 바란다.
○ I hope we can hang out when I come to Korea. Open / Comment

2018-09-30 15:06:52 Why is it Important? So why should you learn Korean?
Here are some of the top reasons...
1. Korea is a great place to live, travel, and work. You can enjoy the rich culture, the beautiful nature, the convenient facilities of the cities, and all the great Korean dishes in Korea even without speaking any Korean, but your experiences in Korea will get so much richer if you know the Korean language.
2. A lot of Korean companies are expanding and operating overseas, so you can find career opportunities using your Korean language skills. Knowledge of Korean will be a great asset throughout your entire career.
3. Do you enjoy watching Korean movies and TV dramas? You can enjoy your favorite Korean movies and TV shows by reading the subtitles, but after learning Korean, you will be able to understand the movies and dramas on a different level and in greater depth.
4. Korean is easy to read and write. You can master how to read and write in Korean within days. While traveling or living in Korea, you will be able to understand a lot of written words just by knowing how to read Korean.
5. If you know Korean, it becomes much easier to learn Japanese because Japanese grammar is almost identical to Korean grammar. The same is true of Chinese because Chinese and Korean share so many similar words Open / Comment

2018-09-26 22:25:36 See a pattern yet? To change the number of servings, you pair a Sino-Korean number with “INBOON.”

One serving: 일인분
Two servings: 이인분
Three servings: 삼인분
Four servings: 사인분
Five servings: 오인분
Six servings: 육인분

You can also replace the noun in front of INBOON to order other meats.

생갈비 일인분 주세요.
Please give me/us one serving of unmarinated short ribs.

차돌박이 일인분 주세요.
Please give me/us three servings of beef brisket.

닭갈비 일인분 주세요.
Please give me/us one serving of chicken “ribs.”

맛있어요.
It's delicious.

Separately the characters are pronounced as MAT-ISS-UH-YO. Together it’s MASSHISUHYO.

Need to make some room down there?

화장실 어디 있어요?
Where’s the restroom?

계산해 주세요.
Check, please.

Traditionally Koreans fight over the bill. One person tries to pay for everyone. If you want to be Korean, then you’d say:

제가 낼게요.
It’s on me. (formal)

If you’d like to go Dutch, then ask:

계산서 나누어 줄 수 있어요?
Can you split the bill?

Some businesses only accept cash, so remember to carry the greens with you. When leaving, formally greet the worker goodbye:

안녕히 계세요. (formal)
Goodbye.
*Use if you’re the one leaving and receiver is staying. Open / Comment

2018-09-26 22:23:56 ORDERING FOOD AT A RESTAURANT
주세요.
Please give it to me.

메뉴 주세요.
Please give me/us the menu.

김치찌개 주세요.
Please give me/us kimchi stew.

뭍 주세요.
Please give me/us water.

계산서 주세요.
Please give me/us the bill.

이거 주세요.
Please give me/us this.

반찬 더 주세요.
Please give me/us more side dishes.

김치 더 주세요.
Please give me/us more kimchi.

안맵게 해주세요.
Please don’t make it spicy.

짜지 않게 해주세요.
Please don’t make it salty.

뭐가 맛있어요?
What’s delicious?

삼겹살 일인분 주세요.
Please give me/us one serving of pork belly.

Or maybe you want two servings.

삼겹살 이인분 주세요.
Please give me/us two servings of pork belly.

What if you want three servings?

삼겹살 삼인분 주세요.
Please give me/us three servings of pork belly. Open / Comment

2018-09-23 03:42:53 Reason 10: Korea is one of the easiest foreign countries in the world for any native English speaker to move to and live long-term to learn the language
This is a very important point.
The great thing about Korea is that there’s an abundance of ESL jobs here with free accommodation, free flights and very good salaries that will put you in the midst of the language you’re trying to learn (as long as you stay away from expat-magnet shit holes like Itaewon and Hongdae!). You can do this in other countries sure but very few of them offer the same perks you get here.

It’s one of the best immersion opportunities that you could ask for – learn a language through immersion and get cashed up at the same time. Open / Comment

2018-09-23 03:40:23 Reason 9: Konglish gives you a good head start
This kind of feels like cheating but it’s not really.

Korean has actually got a lot of loan words from English.

Apart from the fact that Koreans are fanatical about learning the English language and therefore most of the people can speak at least a little, you’ll find a lot of borrowed words that have become assimilated into Korean.

An example off the top of my head is 체크하다 (check + 하다 verb). Korean of course has its own verb for to check something but this Konglish verb is as much part of the language now as anything else.
It’s always a good idea when you’re learning any language to start with cognates and borrowed words as it’s a good way of rapidly expanding your vocab. Open / Comment

2018-09-23 03:39:01 Reason 8: There’s an abundance of excellent material to learn from
After popular languages like French, Spanish and German, Korean is up there as one of the languages where good quality resources are abundant and overflowing – both paid and free. Open / Comment

2018-09-23 03:38:27 Reason 7: Korean word order can be a son of a bitch but here’s how you can make it easy
This is the most challenging part of learning Korean in my opinion but I’ll explain how I’ve simplified it for myself.
First of all, for us Korean is backwards.
Not backwards in the ‘primitive’ sense of the word – I mean literally backwards. English is a S-V-O language whereas Korean is S-O-V (e.g. I went to the shop in Korean is I to the shop went).

Now, this is very easy for short sentences and there’s nothing challenging about a simple sentence like I went to the shop. The problem is when you have relative clauses or longer sentences with extra information embedded in it.

For example, a sentence like “Remember that pretty girl who works at Samsung that I met yesterday?” is where an English speaker would have huge headaches.

A few months ago sentences like this were making my hair fall out!

The trick I’ve found useful is to practise breaking it down into its smaller parts (sometimes I use what linguists call phrase tree diagrams (Google it) to help visualise it too).

I did this on paper for a while but these days I don’t need to. It comes much more naturally with practise:

“Remember that pretty girl who works at Samsung that I met yesterday?”

Subject: the pretty girl

Main verb: remember

All the extra information: who works at Samsung that I met yesterday

So if we only had to say “Remember that pretty girl?” it would be very straightforward.

The rest of the sentence describes the girl. It works like a big long adjective coming before the subject.

The reason why this is weird for us as English speakers is that in English we tend to state the person or thing we’re talking about right at the beginning in a sentence like this. Before I say anything else about where she works or when we met, you know that I’m going to talk about a pretty girl.

In Korean you say all of the descriptive stuff before you even mention the girl.

So if you’re a really slow speaker then the person you’re talking to is not going to know who you’re talking about at first, especially if it’s a long sentence.

This gets really awkward sometimes!

One thing you can do as a new learner to fake it till you make it is say the same thing by making lots of little sentences – e.g. “Remember the pretty girl? I met her yesterday. She works at Samsung.”

My other vital bit of advice for you is this: STOP THINKING IN ENGLISH!

I use caps so you realise how important this point is.

If you’re thinking in English and trying to say sentences like the example above in the middle of a conversation then you’re going to really confuse yourself.

The sooner you start thinking in Korean, however limited it may be, the more coherent your sentences will be. Open / Comment

2018-09-23 03:37:35 Reason 6: Respectful forms and honorifics aren’t a problem at all
I just want to say that this is nowhere near as tough as people make it out to be.
Generally it’s just a matter of adding or dropping -요 (or -야 if you want to be casual) on the end of sentences depending on who you’re talking to.

There is of course more to it than that but for most learners that’s all you need to worry about in the beginning.

Honorifics likewise follow a pretty simple pattern of using the infix -시- for verbs. Once you practise it a few times and be mindful of the people you’re talking to or about, it’s really a piece of cake.

There’s only a small amount of extra honorific vocab too but you learn those just as you would any other vocabulary. Open / Comment