Lesson 56 (Beginner 3B Lesson 8): If I had a dollar for every post I write...

It's been one year since I first started posting on this blog. 🎉 I cannot believe how fast time flies. I didn't expect to keep going week after week (not exactly, but close enough I guess) for a year. I might eventually try to tidy up my notes for my own sanity and better organise things (or organise them another way) and bring back my original blog that was less informal, but it's still too early to say.

This is late (by my standards, after the weekend means its late) because I was still clearing my other things over the weekend. At the very least, I finished the Korean homework for both this and last lesson. Yep, for the first time, I didn't hand in my homework by the lesson.

Now, for the last lesson, we did the first 2 grammar points of Chapter 15. The youngest girl in the class didn't attend, and it seems like she didn't inform the teacher as well, since at the end the teacher mentioned that she'd check in with her to see what's going on.

We stated revising the new chapter's vocabulary that we went through last week in the handout by looking at the textbook.

Grammar

1. A/V-(으)면

This is the conditional, translated to English usually as "if" or "when". It is used to express a condition or assumption that is uncertain or has not occured.

From the form, it's clear that the verb stem is used (simply remove 다, without conjugating) and you add 으 when the adjective or verb has a final consonant that is not ㄹ. (It's nothing different from what we have already seen.)

Examples:

1. 돈이 많으면 집을 살 거예요. (If I have a lot of money, I will buy a house.)
2. 집에 도착하면 전화하세요. (When you reach home, please call me.)
3. 날씨가 추우면 두꺼운 옷을 입으세요. (If the weather is cold, wear thick clothes.)

2. V-는

This is a noun modifier that is added to verbs. It provides state information on the nouns that come after it.

We saw the present tense noun modifier for adjectives in Chapter 14, specifically Lesson 53.

The grammar itself is straightforward; just add 는 to everything. Actually, we did see this form exactly with the adjectives that end in 있다, where you have 재미있다 → 재미있는.

Regardless, some more examples:

1. 먹다 → 먹는 [멍는]
2. 읽다 → 읽는 [잉는]
3. 듣다 → 듣는 [든는]
4. 만들다 → 만드는

The thing to watch out for basically are the pronunciations, particularly the first 3 above. For the last one, remember that there's more than a few final consonants (all coronals) that will give the /d/ sound and undergo the same transformation.

Essentially in all 3 cases, the stops/plosives of the final consonants become their nasal counterparts (still voiced, with place of articulation unchanged).

I won't go into more detail here, because I took a peek at the pronunciation topic of this chapter, and basically it's covering this, so I'll reserve it for then.

For the last one, the ㄹ disappears because of the ㄹ elimination. Remember "snooby"?

Let's see some example sentences.

Examples:

1. 제가 지금 먹는 음식은 김밥이에요. (The food that I am eating now is Gimbap.)
2. 동생이 읽는 책은 재미있어요? (Is the book that your brother is reading interesting?)
3. 제가 자주 듣는 음악은 케이팝예요. (The music that I often listen to is K-pop.)
4. 어머니가 지금 만드시는 음식은 불고기예요. (The food that my mother is making [honorific] now is Bulgogi.)

An important note on the verb that goes before the 는: the subject of the verb has to be marked with the subject marker 가/이. You cannot use the topic marker 은/는. This is why above you see 제가 instead of 저는, though normally 저는 is more common in the example sentences that we've seen previously.

Vocabulary

Double Post?

On 12 December 2020, I saw there were 2 posts of Lesson 56, one based on an earlier version of this note. I've since deleted that older one, since it seems that this note links to the newer post.

Not quite sure what happened to result in that. If it happens again I'd file a bug report.