Archive for 'Grammar'
Country + Language Posted by Ginny on Apr 7, 2009
We’re going to take a look at how to form words like “the Korean language” or “the Japanese language”. One way to do this is to add 어 with the name of the country: Korea : 한국. Korean language : 한국어. Japan : 일본. Japanese language : 일본어. China : 중국. Chinese language : 중국어…
Countries and People Posted by Ginny on Apr 3, 2009
If you want to name a person’s nationality, you take the country’s name + in (인). Here are some examples: Germany : 독일. German person : 독일인. France : 프랑스. French person : 프랑스인. Korea : 한국. Korean person : 한국인. China : 중국. Chinese person : 중국인. America : 미국. American person : 미국인. Another…
Korean Grammar: Directional Particle eh (에) Posted by Ginny on Mar 15, 2009
There’s another another directional particle besides ro (로) and uro (으로). While ro (로) and uro (으로) means to go “towards” something, eh (에) means to be “at” something. For example if I say the phrase “at the house” I would take the noun “house” and attach the eh (에) particle to it. Since the…
Korean Grammar: Directional Particles Posted by Ginny on Mar 11, 2009
I think now’s a good time to go over directional particles. Let’s look at the particle ro (로) and uro (으로). If I want to say, “towards the school” all I have to do is add the ro (로) particle to the noun “school”. The noun for school in Korean is hakkyo (학교). Add ro…
Politeness Levels Posted by Ginny on Feb 4, 2009
A lot of people ask me, what is the difference between the standard polite form and the deferential polite form in Korean? The answer to that is that the deferential polite form uses a higher level of politeness than the standard polite form. While both the standard and the deferential forms are polite, you would…
U-gong-i-san (우공이산) Posted by Ginny on Jan 6, 2009
Today’s post is going to feature a four letter Korean proverb for the New Year. As you know, four letter proverbs are represented by Chinese characters. Here are the Chinese characters for the four letter proverbs: 愚公移山. Let’s break this proverb down to its syllables. This character 愚 is pronounced as ‘u.’ It means foolishness. …
Korean Pronouns Posted by Ginny on Dec 15, 2008
Learning Korean pronouns can be difficult and confusing, even for an intermediate level student. For today’s post, we’ll get to the bottom of understanding Korean pronouns and when they’re used. First off, let’s start off with the singular first person pronoun on the formal level. To say “I” or “me” in Korean you would use juh (저). …