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“Only” Posted by Ginny on Feb 16, 2010
To start this lesson off, let’s take a look some sentences: (1) 술을 마셨어요. (술 = alcohol. 을 = object marking particle. 마셨어요 = past tense of 마시다 = to drink) (2) 술만 마쎴어요. (술 = alcohol. 만 = only. 마쎴어요 = drank) The first sentence can be interpreted as, “[I] drank alcohol” while the…
The Year of the Tiger Posted by Ginny on Feb 13, 2010
This February 14th will be the start of the New Year according to the lunar calendar. Every year a different animal is assigned to the new year. This year it will be the year of the tiger, but more specifically the 백호 호랑이. The 백호 호랑이 is a white colored tiger, and currently extinct in…
Cannot/Won’t Posted by Ginny on Feb 10, 2010
For today’s post we’re going to look at the construction ~지 못하다 and ~지 않다. ~지 못하다 is used when you want to say you cannot do something, while ~지 않다 is used when you won’t do something. Let’s take a look at some sample sentences: 오늘 숙제를 못 해요. (오늘 = yesterday. 숙제 = homework. 를 = object…
Korean Alcohol Posted by Ginny on Feb 7, 2010
The most commonly known and consumed alcohol in Korea is 소주 (See post 10/25/2008 for more on 소주), but did you know that there are other varieties of alcohol in Korea? 약주 literally means “medicinal alcohol”. According to legend, there once was a woman who became sick after her husband’s death. She made herself some…
ㅅ Ending Words in the Past Tense Posted by Ginny on Feb 4, 2010
In the last post, we looked at ㅅ ending words in the present tense. Today we’ll look at ㅅ ending words in the past tense. The verb 짓다 (to build) in the past tense of the standard polite will be 지었어요. Drop the 다 and ㅅ of 짓다 and add 었어요 to form the past…
ㅅ Ending Words Posted by Ginny on Feb 1, 2010
Some ㅅ ending verbs like 짓다 (to build) are a part of a special class of verbs that end in ㅅ. In the standard polite present tense form, 짓다 will be conjugated as 지어요. The 다 from 짓다 is dropped and so is the ㅅ from 짓. Then 어요 is added. Let’s try conjugating the…
Korean Peninsula Posted by Ginny on Jan 31, 2010
Today’s post will be a geography lesson on Korea. As many of you probably know, Korea is a peninsula surrounded by the Pacific ocean, the East Sea, and the Yellow Sea. Korea is in close proximity to China in the north, parts of southern Russia in the northeast, and to Japan in the south. Seventy percent of…