Archive for 'Grammar'
Directional Particles Posted by Ginny on Aug 13, 2009
On March eleventh and March fifteenth, I did a post on directional particles. I’ll do a little review of those posts in this post. If you want, you can look back at those posts and read them for more depth into the directional particles. The post on March eleventh talked about using uro (으로) and…
Simple Sentences Part 2 Posted by Ginny on Aug 10, 2009
I discussed the subject marking particle and the conjugation of simple verbs in the present tense in the deferential polite. Today I’ll show you how to conjugate simple verbs in the standard polite form. I’ll be using the subject marking particle, so this should be a good review of the last post. Let’s say you…
Simple Sentences Posted by Ginny on Aug 7, 2009
Remember the last post on subject marking particles? We’re gonna use them today, so get ready! Before we do that, let’s review a couple things. First, how do you conjugate verbs into the deferential polite? For regular verbs, just add ㅂ니다 (we’ll do irregular verbs at another time). For the verb ‘to sleep’, which is jada…
Subject Marking Particles Posted by Ginny on Aug 4, 2009
There are two particles to mark the subject of a sentence in Korean. Whether you use one or the other will depend on whether the word ends in a vowel or a consonant. Let’s first tackle words that end in a vowel. The proper noun minji (민지) ends in a vowel (minji is a girl’s…
Korean Proverb of the Day Posted by Ginny on Jun 22, 2009
Today’s proverb is, “한 가지로 열 가지를 안다.” Let’s break this sentence down for greater clarity. 한 means 하나 or one in Korean. 하나 has been shortened to 한 because there is a counter that follows it. (Whenever you have a counter following a number, the numbers 1-4, 11-14, 21-24 etc., will be shortened.) Then…
Korean Saying of the Day Posted by Ginny on Apr 26, 2009
Have you ever heard the phrase, kung dong i ka mu gop da (궁둥이가 무겁다)? Let me give you a hint: it’s a phrase having to do with etiquette. Here’s bigger hint: It literally means, the butt (or the rear) is heavy. It’s a phrase used to describe someone who refuses to leave the host’s…
Counters Posted by Ginny on Apr 13, 2009
Here are some Korean counters. Counters are words like “piece of paper” or “year’s old” that you attach to numbers to indicate sets or numbers of items/people/animals, etc. 별 : items of clothing 대 : vehicles, cars, machinery 과 : lessons 권 : volumes of books 장 : piece of paper 마리 : animals 병…