Lesson 53 (Beginner 3B Lesson 5): A Longer Post than Usual

We went through the mistakes for the test at the start. This was significantly shorter than in the past, so I take it to mean that everyone else did very well. I did better than expected again. There was one question which I thought I had gotten wrong but it turned out that my answer was correct... so it's a bit scary but now it's 3 tests where I've only been penalised for the essay/oral components and I'm just going to keep pressuring myself...

But that's for another time to worry about. I think the next test will be in February at the earliest, since this test was 3 months from the last one. However, next week is a public holiday, so there's no class. There's bound to be a break during Christmas as well, like last year. So I think it's more likely that the test is in mid-February, at the earliest.

We had a new student join the class. He's still a university student, so I guess he might be the youngest? I'm not certain... the previously youngest student in the class was... well, it depends on which year he is in, I guess. It's possible due to national service that he is older than she is... I think he had learnt Korean elsewhere and took a placement test.

We spent the lesson going through the handout for this chapter, which was the vocabulary and then the first 2 grammar points. That meant there is quite a fair bit of homework in the homework sheet, and the teacher also gave us another 2 pages to do in the handout itself.

Chapter 14 is about clothes.

With the vocab she made us make sentences with the adjectives. She spared me though, near the end. Not sure if it was intentional or not, but I'm grateful. For the first two sentences I was used as an example... for the adjectives "cute" and "smart"... For the "cute" one that came from the youngest student, I guess she can't call any of the guys in the class "cute", and since I'm the younger of the remaining two students... Then my friend continued and said I was smart. That kind of adds pressure, I don't really think I'm that smart (seriously, work with my colleagues and some of them are the definition of smart), just... I guess for some things I put more effort into it, and then it pays off in the end.

We only had one breakout room for this session, and it was in a group of 3. The new student and the other girl (the younger one) was in the main room with the teacher.

I'm in quite a dilemma about how to tag my Anki cards... I realised I have nothing tagged in Beginner 3B. That's because we started chapter 13 while it was still Beginner 3A. The thing is, 3B is technically this term, but at the same time, we are really doing Beginner 4A since the test is over. The teacher has called the Zoom room Beginner 4... I'm probably going to continue labelling the lessons here following 8 lessons = 1 term (A or B). But in my cards... I tagged chapter 14 as Beginner 4A.

One day the inconsistency will be so great, I bet it will come back to bite me. Or I'd just be missing a tag somewhere maybe, like how I'm already missing the Beginner 3B tag.

As for why the Zoom room is numbered 4 and not 4A, maybe she decided to schedule more meetings upfront? I have no idea, in the past the room was 2B, then 3A, then 3B...

Anyway, the breakdown seems to be like this:

1. Beginner 1: Chapters 1-5
2. Beginner 2: Chapters 6-9
3. Beginner 3: Chapters 10-13
4. Beginner 4: Chapters 14-16?

I'm basing Beginner 4 based on the fact that Chapter 16 is the last for the book, and I... assume we won't be touching the 2A book. However, if we do end at Chapter 16, then the test may come even earlier, since there would only be 3 chapters. I can't tell since the lastest set of notes I've received is only up to Chapter 16. There's a chance that we might just continue to Chapter 1 for the level 2 books.

Vocabulary

Grammar

1. 'ㄹ' 탈락

Back in Lesson 42 we learned 'ㅡ' 탈락, which was the elimination of ㅡ for verb stems that end with that vowel when conjugated with 아/어.

This is something similar, in that it is also an elimination, but the rules are somewhat different.

When the verb or adjective stem ends in ㄹ:

1. Do not insert '으'.
2. 'ㄹ' is omitted when followed by a suffix that begins with ㅅ, ㄴ, or ㅂ.

1. Do not insert '으'.

This applies to certain grammar forms with an optional 으 such as A/V-(으)ㄹ 거예요, A/V-(으)세요, and V-(으)ㄹ 까요?. Most recently, we also learnt V-(으)려고 하다.

Actually, this is much like with N(으)로, where if the noun's final consonant is 'ㄹ', we do not add '으' but simply add 로 to it.

Examples:

1. 살다 + -(으)ㄹ 거예요 → 살 거예요.
2. 만들다 + -(으)ㄹ 까요? → 만들까요?
3. 놀다 + -(으)려고 하다 → 놀려고 해요.

2. 'ㄹ' is omitted when followed by a suffix that begins with ㅅ, ㄴ, or ㅂ.

Examples:

1. 살다 + -(으)세요 → 사세요.
   • Yes, this is identical to the honorific form/imperative form for 사다 ("to buy").
   • Here Rule #1 comes into play as well.
2. 팔다 + 네요 → 파네요.
3. 길다 + -습/ㅂ니다 → 깁니다

The teacher actually gave a very helpful mnemonic device for this section. It's definitely better than the text description I'm going to give here because she actually drew it out and told it like a story. I'm not going to draw it out... and I'm not going to include the screenshots I took here, so here's the text description.

First, you imagine you have... Snoopy. Yeah, Snoopy. But this isn't really Snoopy. It's a "pirated version", so its name is actually "Snooby". Unlike the actual Snoopy, Snooby is very fierce. He likes to chase snakes. When the snake sees Snooby, it runs away. So the image is of a snake (which basically was drawn so it curls around like the letter ㄹ) running away from Snooby (ㅅ, ㄴ, ㅂ).

That image is so effective, I don't think it's going to be easy to forget this.

2. A-(으)ㄴ

This is the present tense modifier for adjectives, which actually modifies the noun that comes after the adjective. The adjective is always before the noun.

(This is amazing because I've been wondering how to do this for quite some time, to add an adjective to a noun to describe it. I can't wait for chapter 15 when we learn how to add verbs to nouns, though I already rougly know how to do it from chancing across the Quizlet deck...)

The rules are:

1. If there is batchim, add 은.
2. If there is no batchim, or if the batchim is ㄹ, add ㄴ.
   • Recall from the above section, the ㄴ sound causes the omission of ㄹ
3. If the adjective ends in 있다/없다, add 는.

(I think the last one is actually just a more specific case of how you do it for verbs. Adding 는 is a special case for these kind of adjectives that look even more like verbs than other adjectives do... but I'm just rambling and these are hypotheses that are unverified.)

Examples:

1. 작다: 작은
2. 크다: 큰
3. 재미있다: 재미있는
4. 맛없다: 맛없는 [마덤는]