Lesson 34 (Beginner 2B Lesson 2): Beginning a New Book

We finished up with the first textbook (1A) within the first 15 minutes, which was just the pronunciation and the self-check sections.

For the new textbook we went through the contents for an overview of what we will be covering in the 1B book.

Finally, there's a vocab quiz next week. I think it would be quite challenging, as there has to be some conversion of sentences done for the honorific speech.

I hope the Quizlet deck gets assigned soon before I start putting in my own cards into Anki... and then have dupes when the Quizlet deck is added and I import those.

On a side note, I found some other public decks on the teacher's account, including one set for the irregular ㄷ conjugation for Chapter 8, so I imported that to Anki.

Pronunciation

This is more about the intonation.

• 지금 숙제해요. (I'm doing homework now.)
• 같이 숙제해요. (Let's do the homework together.)

The difference in the two 요s is that in the first, it's much shorter. The second one is longer.

Basically, the rule is that when you have a sentence where the meaning is "let's do something" (called propositive sentences) then you would say it such that the 요 is longer.

I actually found it quite hard to pronounce. I understand it, and I can hear the difference, but it's really quite a challenge to produce this on command at this point.

If you didn't check out the linked HiNative answer, the TL;DR between propositive and imperative sentences in Korean is that in the former you are making a suggestion but the listener has a choice whether to do it or not, but for the imperative it's a command and they must do it.

Vocabulary

The Chapter 9 content for this lesson has been all vocabulary, with quite a bit of cultural and contextual notes which I've outlined either in the notes or in their own sections below this table.

My Family, House, and Country

Normally you would use 제 to refer to my (thing). That is the first person singular.

However, for your family members (typically your seniors), house, and country, you use 우리 instead.

우리 literally means we or us, and it is the first person plural.

• You use it even when you are the only child and are talking about your mother: 우리 어머니.
• You use it even when you are the only person living in your house: 우리 집
• You also use it when you refer to your husband, even though you don't share your husband with anyone else: 우리 남편

Family: 촌 System

The 촌 (from 村, meaning village) is used to count how far away someone in the family tree is from you.

In this system, the family boundary is 8촌 (팔촌). If another person is within the family boundary, you cannot marry them.

You can only go up and down, not "sideways" along a tree. This is why your uncle is called 삼촌 and is 3촌 away:

• 1촌 between you and your father
• 2촌 between you and your grandfather (father's father)
• 3촌 between you and your grandfather's son, i.e. your uncle

It's not 2촌 because although your uncle is your father's brother (or mother's, but let's just take an example which illustrates the point), you cannot go "sideways" along the connection. You have to draw the connection up to your grandfather and then back down.

This is also why your cousin (uncle's son) is 4촌 away and called 사촌.

Native Numbers (Age)

I think this is the last time we will see numbers (as a topic of their own), but there are still some notes on their use.

Naturally everyone in class had to cough up their ages and reveal it. It was a revealing day, since before this when doing the family portion we had to talk about how many people were in our family and who they were.

Half the class (3) are in their 20s (이십대), and the other half (another 3) are in their 30s (삼십대).

The numbers 20-50 are used very often.

Note that 20 has a "special" form (스무) when used with unit nouns. But only for 20, for the rest of the 20s you use the original form.

• 스무 살 (20 years old)
• 스물 한 살 (21 years old; but notice 하나 is 한)

60-90 are not used as much. Many tend to use the Sino-Korean numbers instead of the native numbers, even when it is technically not the correct expression.

To say someone is 71 years old:

• 일흔 한 살 is the correct expression
• 칠십일 is also acceptable

However, the 60-90 range numbers do bear some similarity to their single-digit counterparts 6-9, which makes them easier to remember.

Honorific Speech

This is used to give respect to the person that you are talking about. It is expected when you are talking about someone that is older or higher in social status.

It is not necessarily the person that you are talking to, but it could be.

Consequently, the subject of the sentence must be the listener (second person) or a third person, and never the speaker (first person).

Note: Different languages have different types of honorific speech; it turns out that the T–V distinction in Indo-European languages like French (tu/vous) and Italian (tu/voi) is also a form of honorifics. The term comes from the Latin pronouns.

This section is give examples on how it's for talking about others.

So if someone uses honorific speech on you, you cannot use that form in your reply. It would be weird!

For example if you go to a restaurant and they ask how many people are in your party:

• 몇 분이세요?

Your reply (for a party of 3) would be:

• 세 명이요.

Similarly, if someone asks you (and your name is Nana) if you eat meat:

• 나나 씨는 고기를 드세요?

Your reply would be (if you do eat meat):

• 네, 먹어요.