Lesson 11

Merry Christmas! Since I've a day off on Christmas Eve too, I figured I should finish this post. Now, this is for a lesson that was more than a week ago...

In which I learn that the verb for "to work part time" in Korean (아르바이트하다) comes from the German Arbeit, which simply means "work".

We started on Chapter 3 of the book. It's the Seoul National University book.

Basically this lesson was an introduction to other verbs (apart from "to be" and "to have" which was covered before). Lots of verbs, but just their dictionary forms (infinitives). Conjugation is next week (from the time I learnt this lesson, not from when this is posted, since it's way past both lessons).

We also learnt the names of a few common places (see vocabulary below).

Interesting that the distinction between learn and study is whether you do it alone (study - 공부하다) or with someone else's help (learn - 배우다).

For German and French (and quite possibly a few other European languages), the distinction is about whether it is your course of study or something that you study/learn in general. For example in German, you can only studieren your course of study. You do not Deutsch studieren unless you are majoring in German. Same with French, you don't étudies français, you apprends français. (Pretty sure it's the same with Italian's studiare and imparare if my memory did not fail me.)

You can, however, both 한국어를 공부해요 and 한국어를 배워요.

Pronunciation

ㄱ, ㅍ,ㅎ, combined with 예 (계, 폐, 혜)

The resulting pronunciation is [게, 페, 헤]. That is, 계 is pronunced as 게, 폐 is pronounced as 페, and 혜 is pronounced as 헤.

Apparently it used to be as written (e.g. gye for 계 instead of ge), but not any longer.

This is why 시계 (watch; clock) is pronounced shi-ge and not shi-gye. Mystery solved.

Syllables with 4 Letters

Previously, we already learnt that if the next syllable starts with ㅇ, then the final consonant "moves over" to that upcoming syllable, and then everything is fine since you can just pronounce the remaining 3. As an example, 앉아요 would be pronounced [안자요].

But what if the next syllable doesn't start with ㅇ?

You don't pronounce all 4, that's for sure. The consonant to pronounce on the bottom is the one first in alphabet order:

ㄱ ㄲ ㄴ ㄷ ㄸ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅃ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ

  • 앉다 is pronounced [안다], since ㄴ comes before ㅈ.
  • 읽다 is pronounced [익다], since ㄱ comes before ㄹ.

I don't have more details, and there's probably more complex rules, but this will do for now.

Vocabulary

Decided to add the Chinese if they exist and I think they'll help me remember. Sites list the traditional characters (obviously) so I'm going with that, even though I'm actually familiar with the simplified characters.

Korean English Chinese
하다 to do
일하다 to work
공부하다 to study
운동하다 to exercise
아르바이트하다 to work part-time
전화하다 to talk on the phone
구경하다 to sightsee; to look around
샤워하다 to take a shower
쇼핑하다 to shop (go shopping)
요리하다 to cook
만나다 to meet
자다 to sleep
마시다 to drink
쉬다 to rest
가르치다 to teach
보다 to see; to watch
읽다 to read
먹다 to eat
배우다 to learn
주다 to give
숙제 homework 宿題
영화 movie 映畵
오렌지 orange
태권도 taekwondo
어디 where
house; home
공원 park 公園
극장 theatre 劇場
영화관 cinema 映畵館
도서관 library 圖書館
학교 school 學校
시장 market 市場
커피숍 coffee shop (cafe)
카페 cafe
식당 restaurant 食堂
회사 company 會社
백화점 department store 百貨店
쇼핑몰 shopping mall
마트 mart (megamart)
슈퍼마켓 supermarket
편의점 convenience store
가게 shop
그리고 and
그럼 then (if so)
지금 now

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