Posts from August 2009

Directional Particles

Posted by Ginny No Comments
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 ro (로). Uro (으로)/ro (로) is a particle used to indicate a general direction or location. In English, it’s like saying ‘towards …’. For example, let’s say you want to say ‘I go towards the school.’ You would need a directional particle to indicate ‘towards’ in the sentence. The particles for ‘towards’ is uro (으로) and ro (로). However, whether you use uro (으로) or ro (로) depends on whether the location or noun ends in a consonant or vowel. In this case, the noun is school, which is hakgyo (학교). Hakgyo (학교) ends in a vowel, so the particle used here will be ro (로).

The sentence ‘I go towards the school’ will need a verb meaning ‘to go’. In Korean this is gada (가다). To conjugate this verb in the present tense, drop the da (다), and you’re left with the stem ga (가). Let’s conjugate this in the standard polite level. The verb gada (가다) will be gayo (가요) in the standard polite level. Therefore the sentence ‘I go towards the school’ will be hakgyo ro gayo (학교로 가요). The ‘I’ is implied in Korean. In Korean, a subject of a sentence can be dropped. This is especially true in conversational settings when it’s obvious that the speaker is referring to himself/herself.

Now to say ‘I go towards the school’ in the deferential polite, it will be hakgyo ro gamnida (학교로 갑니다). Here, the verb ‘to go’ will be conjugated differently from the standard polite form. The da (다) will be dropped from ‘gada’ and the stem ga (가) will be left over. Now, since gada (가다) ends in a vowel, you’ll just add ㅂ니다 to the stem. So the entire verb will look like this: kamnida (갑니다). The problem is, the biup (ㅂ) will sound more like a mium (ㅁ) because the following niun (ㄴ) will make it difficult to pronounce the word with a ‘b’ sound.

Now let’s use a noun that ends in a consonant. Gyoshil (교실) ends in a consonant, so you’ll have to use the uro (으로) particle, right? No, the reason is because gyoshil (교실) ends in a riul (ㄹ). Riul (ㄹ) is a consonant, but you’ll still you ro (로). Don’t worry, this is the only exception where a consonant will use ro (로). So the sentence ‘I go towards the classroom’ will be gyoshil ro gayo (교실로 가요) in the standard polite. Note that gyoshil (교실) means classroom. Now let’s use the example of samushil (사무실). Samushil means office. What will you use, ro (로) or uro (으로)? You’ll use ro (로) because samushil (사무실) ends in a riul (ㄹ), which is the only consonant that uses ro (로).

Simple Sentences Part 2

Posted by Ginny No Comments
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 want to say, ‘Minji sleeps’ in the standard polite form. To do this, you will need the subject marking particle attached to minji (민지). Since Minji (민지) ends in a vowel, you’ll need the ga (가) particle. You’ll also need to conjugate the verb ‘to sleep’ in the standard polite form. To do this, drop the da (다) in jada (자다), which is the infinitive verb meaning ‘to sleep’. Then add yo (요) to the stem of the verb ‘to sleep’. Altogether it will look like this, jayo (자요). Alright, now to translate ‘Minji sleeps’ in Korean, it would be, Minjiga jayo (민지가 자요).

Now let’s say you want to say ‘Youngmin sleeps’. Since Youngmin (영민) ends in a consonant, you’re going to have to use the e (영민이) particle. Altogether it’ll look like this, Youngmine (영민이). The verb ‘to sleep’ will be conjugated in the same way as it was in the previous example. Altogether ‘Youngmin sleeps’ will be Youngmine jayo (영민이 자요).

Ok, so far you know how to say a simple sentence using the deferential polite and the standard polite. See, Korean isn’t so bad, is it?

Simple Sentences

Posted by Ginny 1 Comment
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 (자다), take away the da (다). Then add the ending ㅂ니다. Altogether you get, 잡니다 or jamnida. Normally the letter biup (ㅂ) is pronounced as a b or p, but since the niun (ㄴ) is pronounced right after it, the biup (ㅂ) has a tendency to sound like an ‘m’ sound.

Ok, now we’re ready to form a sentence. Let’s say that you want to say, ‘Minji sleeps’ in the deferential polite. To do this, you need the subject marking particle. Minji (민지) ends with a vowel. Therefore, you’ll need ga (가) attached to Minji (민지). In Korean the sentence is, Minjiga jamnida (잡니다).

I’ll give you another example. Let’s say that we want to say ‘Youngmin sleeps’ in the deferential polite form. To say that we would use the subject marking particle e (이) attached to Youngmin (영민이). This is because Youngmin (영민이) ends in a consonant. Altogether this sentence will look like this: Youngmine jamnida (영민이 잡니다).

Not too hard right?

Subject Marking Particles

Posted by Ginny 1 Comment
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 name). Therefore the subject marking particle that will be attached to minji will be ga (가). So altogether it will look like this: minjiga (민지가). I’ll provide another example. The proper noun junsu (준수) (junsu is a boy’s name) ends in a vowel. Therefore the subject marking particle attached to junsu (준수) will be ga (가). In a sentence it’ll look like this, junsuga (준수가). This is true for nouns that are not proper nouns. Words like se or bird in Korean will be sega (새가).

Words ending in a consonant will use the subject marking particle e (이). For example the name youngmin (영민) ends in a consonant so it will be youngmine (영민이). I’ll give another example. The name subum (수범) also ends in a consonant, which means that in a sentence it will look like this, subume (수범이). Let’s look at the Korean word for table which is shikdang (식당). Since this ends in a consonant, it’s going to look like this, shikdange (식당이).

If you’re still confused about when to use e (이) or ga (가), it might be a good idea to study the Korean alphabet all over again. Try to remember what the consonants look like and what the vowels look like. This will help you determine whether to attach e (이) or ga (가). Next time I’ll teach you how to build upon these sentences, but make sure you understand the subject particles first. This will help you when we get to more complicated grammar.

Constitution Day

Posted by Ginny No Comments
Aug 1 2009

Last month South Korea celebrated Constitution Day. Constitution Day in Korean is Jehunjul (제헌절). This national holiday celebrates the South Korean Constitution. The South Korean constitution was first drafted in 1948, but there have been revisions to the constitution ever since. The South Korean constitution lays out a basic framework for the Korean government and lists the basic freedoms of the people. Chapter 2 of the Constitution is explicitly dedicated to listing the individual rights of the South Korean people. For example chapter two basically states that if someone is accused, they must have a right to an attorney.

Although the rights of individuals are protected, there is an additional bill not part of the constitution that may overwrite the freedoms listed in chapter two. This bill is called the guk ga boan bup (국가 보안법) or the National Security Act. This bill has been controversial. The bill states that anyone that tries to overthrow the government or distribute materials against the South Korean government may have his/her individual rights taken away. Exactly what constitutes an ‘overthrow’ of the government is unclear. Recently the government has come under fire for imprisoning a couple of bloggers for putting up anti-government webpages.

For these reasons, the Constitution of South Korea is held in high esteem. The Constitution clearly states that Korea is a jayu minjujuk gibonjilso (자유민주적 기본질서) or liberal democracy. The Constitution secures the right to form associations and to carry out ‘collective action’. For Koreans, collective action has meant demo (데머) or demonstrations against government policies. These last few years it seems that the citizens of South Korea have brought it upon themselves to put it to frequent use. This is a huge departure from the dictatorship of the 1960s-1980s and the autocratic emperor system where individuals were usually killed or imprisoned for speaking out against the government or king.

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