KOREAN LANGUAGE TUTORIAL

LESSON 28

Korean Lesson: Lessons 28

An Important Note:
Eliminating the Subject

One thing that I have yet to tell you is that Korean people often omit the topic/subject of the sentence – especially when the topic/subject is ‘I.’ Korean people love making their sentences as short as possible, and this is one additional way of doing it. In most cases, when the subject/topic can be inferred by the situation, Korean people drop it entirely from the sentence. For example, instead of saying:

저는 아침식사를 안 먹었어요 = I didn’t eat breakfast

They would say:
아침식사를 안 먹었어요 = I didn’t eat breakfast

Both are perfect sentences and both can be used, but you should be aware that Korean people often get rid of the subject/topic altogether when speaking.

More Korean Particles
As of now, you have learned a few different Korean particles.

The particles you have learned so far are: 는/은, 이/가, 를/을, 의 and 도. There are many more particles that you will need to learn – and this lesson will cover a lot of them.

Korean Particle 들 and using 몇 with a counter

You have probably been asking yourself ‘how can I make something plural?’ Up to now, I haven’t mentioned anything about plural words in Korean. The reason for this is Korean people rarely distinguish between singular and plural. For example, if I say:
나는 사과를 샀어
This could mean “I bought an apple” OR “I bought apples.” This seems crazy to English speakers, but this is just how it is done in Korean. In most cases, the context can make it clear if you bought ‘an apple’ or if you bought ‘apples.’ If you really want to make it clear that you bought one apple, you could say:

나는 사과 1 개를 샀어 = I bought one apple
When dealing with the ambiguity of singular/plural sentences in Korean, you could also use the word 몇 which can replace a number in these examples:

2개/2명/2번. When 몇 replaces a number in these cases (몇 번/몇 명/몇 번) it has the meaning of “some ____.” For example, instead of saying: “나는 사과 1개를 샀어”, you could say:
나는 사과 몇 개를 샀어 = I bought SOME apples

More examples (remember that펜 1개 and 1개의 펜 have the same meaning):

나는 몇 개의 펜을 샀어 = I bought some pens

나는 몇 명의 사람을 만났어 = I met some people

나는 학교에 몇번 갔어 = I went to school a few/some times (not sometimes) (remember, 번 acts as an adverb – so it doesn’t need a particle to be attached to it).

Anyways, back to what I was trying to say earlier. 들 can be attached to a noun to make that noun plural. BUT, 들 is usually only attached to the word person (사람) or other words with the meaning of people (for example: actors, workers, doctors, etc…).

의사들은 돈이 많아 = doctors have a lot of money

선생님은 내일 학생들을 만날 거야 = The teacher will meet the students tomorrow

배우들은 그들의* 영화를 보통 좋아하지 않아 = actors usually don’t like their movies

*By adding the possessive particle 의 to 그들 (them) it becomes 그들의 (their)

Korean Particle 만 (only)
만 is another good particle to know that has the meaning of “only.” It can be attached directly to the end of a noun to express “only ____”. For example:
나는 물만 마셔 = I only drink water
나만 그 여자를 좋아해 = Only I like that girl
나는 사과만 샀어 = I only bought apples
You could also stress that you only bought one apple:
나는 사과 1개만 샀어 = I only bought 1 apple
I said it once before in Lesson 3, but it is something that learners of Korean often forget: When a verb ends in 하다, the part before 하다 is usually a noun form of that verb. The examples I gave before were:
성공하다 = succeed
성공 = success
말하다 = speak
말 = speech/words
성취하다 = achieve
성취 = achievement
With these verbs, the part before 하다 can be separated from 하다 to make a noun form of that verb. Then, “하다” meaning “do” can act on that noun (I do study = I study). It is hard to explain, but look at the following example:
나는 공부했어 = I studied
나는 공부를 했어 = I studied
Those two mean exactly the same thing, even though in the second example, 공부 is used as a stand-alone noun. But why is all of this important? It is important because now you can treat 공부 as a regular noun, which means you can attach 만 to it:
저는 공부만 했어요 = I only studied
저는 어제 일만 했어요 = Yesterday, I only worked
Note that just because a word ends in 하다, doesn’t mean you can do this. For example, many adjectives end in 하다 (for example: 행복하다: happy), but this:
저는 행복만 해요 = I am only happy – doesn’t really make a lot of sense
Also, many verbs don’t end in 하다 and just end in 다. I will show you in a later lesson how to add 만 to any verb (it is too complicated for this lesson).