Korean Fields-Lesson 3
Author: 106501054 Dino 謝銘鴻
I am a NCCU student and now studying Introduction to Language Learning. In this semester, my group and I are going to learn Korean, aiming to be able to have basic conversation with native speakers in the end of this semester. Details and processes of my learning will be recorded in this website, Korean Fields. Welcome!
In lesson 2, I have learnt possessive pronouns, subjective particles, sentence pattern for asking and answering my nationality, and different nations in Korean.
How to ask and answer name or nationality
When it comes to inquiring someone’s name or nationality, or answering speaker’s own ones, there some useful sentence patterns. The conversation bellow is a demonstration of the sentence patters.
A: 안녕하세요. 제 이름은 박성효입니다. — Hello, my name is 성효.
B: 안녕하세요. 성효 새. 제 한국은 왕리입니다. — Hello, Mr. 성효. My name is 왕리.
A: 왕리 씨는 일본사람입니까? — Are you a Japanese?
B: 아니다. 저는 사람입니다. 성효 씨는 한국사람입니까? — No, I am a Chinese. Are you a Korean?
A: 네, 저는 한국사람입니다. — Yes, I am a Korean.
Basically, when you would like to introduce yourself, you could say 제 이름은 ___입니다. 은 is a subjective particle and its function is to emphasize on the existence of the subjective described in the sentence. It should be put after the noun.
It can also be noticed that a word -씨 is added after the speakers’ names. This again is a honorary title, which shows the speaker’s respect to the listener of both genders. This word reminds me again of the strict social norms in Korean culture in which people are supposed to display their politeness and respects to the elderly or to those they firstly meet. In other words, language reflects the society.
There are some other vocabulary contained in this conversation.
제 (저의) — my …
이름 — name
사람 — people (The word 은 has the same meaning. For example, both 한국은 and 한국사람 can mean Korean.)
일본 — Japan
네/예 — Yes, a positive answer.
아니다 — No, a negative answer.
문법 GRAMMAR — POSSESSIVE PRONOUN
The word 의 is a possessive pronoun detached after the noun. The original form of this word is 저의, which transforms into 의, with an easier and more fluent pronunciation. Some examples are listed below.
저의 책 ==> 제 책 — my book
제 is a more polite way in conversation and it functions like a honorary title.
나의 책 ==> 내 책 — my book (In this case, 내 is not as formal as 제, suggesting that the listener may have a closer relationship with the speaker.)
나의 친구 ==> 내 친구 — my friend
나의 컵 ==> 내 컵 — my cup
When the speaker wants to inquire the information of an object, the sentence pattern below can be handy for the scenario.
이것은 누구의 잭입니꺼? — Whose book is this?
이것은 선생님의 책입니다. — This is the teacher’s book.
누구 mean “whose,” posting a question on the pronoun and the belonging of that particular pronoun. The words 선생님 mean teacher. It can also be replaced by words listed below based on the backgrounds of the dialogue.
엄마 — mother
언 — elder sister (Notice that this word can be only used by female speakers. As for male speakers, they should use 누나 to describe their elder sisters. Once again, the different language usage indicates the fact that Korea people really cares about their social roles. Their identities, genders and their relationships with others are indeed the big issues that cannot be ignored when I am learning Korean.)
동생 — younger brother / younger sister
문법 GRAMMAR — SUBJECTIVE PARTICLE
Firstly, let’s look at a conversation.
A: 중국사람입니꺼? — Are you a Chinese?
B: 네. 중국사람입니다. — Yes, I am a Chinese.
아니다. 중국사람이 아닙니다. — No, I am not a Chinese.
The word -이 is a subjective particle that emphasizes the noun before itself. In fact, there are four subjective particles in Korean, and they are -가 / -이 / 는 / 은. 는 / 은 are often used in the scenarios of comparison. If a noun does not have a syllable coda, speaker should use -가 for the subjective particle. One the other hand, if there’s a syllable coda in the subject, then -이should be used. Some instances of the subjective particles are listed below.
학생이
선생님이
엄마가
동생이
책이
언니가
NATIONS
At the end, I learnt some Korean to describe different nations. Most of them are foreign words since the pronunciations are quite similar in both English and Chinese.
미국 — USA
일본 — Japan
러시아 — Russia
프랑스 — France
태국 — Thailand
