LEARN KOREAN (한국어) [GRAMMAR] #1

KOREAN PARTICLE ~만 (ONLY)

The particle ~만 is very common and has the meaning of "only." It can be attached directly to the end of a noun to express "only (that noun)." For example:

나는 물만 마셔 - I only drink water

It can be attached to the subject or the object of a sentence, and in each case it replaces the particle that would normally be attached there (~은/는 or ~을/를) or For example:

나만 그 여자를 좋아해 - Only I like that girl
나는 그 여자만 좋아해 - I only like that girl

나만 사과를 샀어 - Only I bought apples
나는 사과만 샀어 - I only bought apples

You could also stress that you only bought one apple (or any other number of things) by placing ~만 on a counter:

나는 사과 한 개만 샀어 - I only bought 1 apple
저는 차 두 대만 있어요 - I only have two cars
저는 친구 한 명만 만났어요 - I only met one friend

I said it once before, 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 (for example: 가다, 먹다, 보내다). The way that you can change those verbs into a form that allows ~만 to be attached will be discussed later.

The examples above show ~만 attached to nouns, but really it can be attached to a wide variety of things – including grammatical principles and other particles, which we'll get into after a few more lessons on Korean basics.

When ~만 gets attached to more complicated things, it usually doesn't replace something, but overlaps it. What I mean is, when ~만 is attached to the subject or object, ~을/를 or ~은/는 get eliminated. However, when ~만 is attached to something else, everything usually stays in place.

I'll show now how it can be attached to the ~에 particle we've covered.

우리는 학교에만 갔어요 - We only went to school
학생들은 교실 안에만 있어요 - The students are only in their classrooms
저는 그 여자를 그때만 사랑했어요 - I loved her only at that time

When using 그때, ~에 is often omitted because it can be assumed.