Lesson 79 (Intermediate 2 Lesson 6)

We started the lesson reviewing the Quizlet sentence set for Chapter 6. We each took turns to answer (translate the English sentence to Korean). Fortunately, I remembered to review before the lesson. Since it seems like Quizlet is becoming more actively reviewed, I‘ve added a Quizlet review task to do before my lesson each week.

Culture Note

We didn’t read the passage in class. It is about the Korea post, the postal service. The only thing discussed was the logo. The logo is of a swallow in flight. If I didn’t understand the explanation wrongly, it is because in the past messages used to be sent by messenger birds.

The teacher commented that the mailboxes here (where you put your mail in to send the mail) are big. Plus, there’s 2 slots, one for local and one for overseas/international mail. The ones in Korea are much smaller and only for domestic mail.

I try to think when was the last time I had to mail a letter. It must have been years. I wonder if people just a few years younger than me have ever taken note of the mailboxes? I don’t know when was the last time I have seen one… in fact, if you ask me, I do not even know where the nearest one to my house is.

I only know where (what I think is) the nearest post office is, which also has a mailbox, but… not a clue as to where the mailbox is.

Pronuncation

Another familiar pronunciation rule.

As early as Lesson 17, we learn about this rule for final consonant ㄱ (though it also applies to the sound [ㄱ], so the final consonant can also be ㄲ or ㅋ). In Lesson 41, we learn that the same applies for final consonants [ㅂ, ㄷ].

(We have also seen this before in part in Lesson 47 and Lesson 20.)

The full rule: When the initial consonants ‘ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㅅ, ㅈ’ follow the final cononant sounds [ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ,], ‘ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㅅ, ㅈ’ are pronounced as [ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ, ㅉ].

Examples:

1. 학교 [학꾜]
2. 꽃집 [꼳찝]
3. 택비 [택삐]
4. 늦게 [늗께]
5. 밥도 [밥또]

Grammar

1. A/V-(으)ㄹ 것 같다

Recall last lesson, where we learned V-(으)ㄴ 것 같다? And I noted that there is a “future tense” version?

Well, here it is. This is the whole family of them:

• V-는 것 같다—Present
• V-(으)ㄴ 것 같다—Past
• V-(으)ㄹ 것 같다—Future

However, it is important to note that there are actually two meanings to this. One is the future tense version of the ones we have seen (as expected).

The other is to indicate a subjective guess or presumption, made with little to no evidence. For this second meaning, it can be used for present and even past events.¹

Examples:

1. 내일은 비가 올 것 같아요.
   • Implies a kind of blind guessing. If you were more certain (e.g. you saw the weather forecast), then you would use the future tense: 내일은 비가 올 거예요.
2. 부모님과 같이 가면 인사동이 좋을 것 같아요.
   • This is a present event, but is a blind guess.
3. 벌써 집에 도착했을 것 같아요.
   • This is a past event, but is a blind guess where the evidence is either weak or non-existent. If there were some evidence, then it would be 도착한 것 같아요 (using V-(으)ㄴ 것 같다).
4. 이 옷이 민지 씨한테 잘 어울릴 것 같아요.
   • Again, this is someone giving their opinion based on little to no evidence for a present event, i.e. the person hasn’s actually seen Minji wearing the clothes. If the speaker has seen Minji wearing the clothes, then the correct expression would be 잘 어울리는 것 같아요 (using V-는 것 같다).

2. V-는지/A-(으)ㄴ지/N인지 + 알다[모르다]

This form is very similar to V-는데, A-(으)ㄴ데, and N인데, where the only difference is you have 지 instead of 데.

This is used when asking or responding to a question about knowing a certain fact or method.²

The thing to note is that the interrogative words such as who and when, etc. are all considered nouns, so they would be followed by 인지, e.g. 누구인지, 언제인지.

Examples:

1. 누구인지 아세요?
2. 어떻게 가는지 아세요?
3. 어디에 쓰는지 아세요?
4. 왜 유명한지 모르겠어요.
5. 나나 씨가 작년에 어디를 여행했는지 아세요?
   • The past tense is the same as with 데 because 지, like 데, is not a noun, so you do not use the past tense noun modifier.

Vocabulary

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Also, I finally discovered that I could use Quizlet’s Export function to get the words from there, instead of typing out all of them. This is as these last two chapters I had to use to make a new set for the sentence set since the original ones had rich text.

Homework

• Workbook for Chapter 7, p. 132–137
• 단어 공부: Quizlet Chapter 7 word set

Stats

• Students: 4 out of 5 (the older lady was unwell, and last week was the last lesson for my friend)
• Breakout room activities: 1