howtostudykorean: unit 1 lesson 1

HowtoStudyKorean.com Unit 1 1

Nouns:

= Korea = city = name = I = I = man = woman = that = this = that (when object is far away) = thing = chair = table = teacher = bed = house = car

Nouns:

= person = book = computer = tree/wood = sofa = China = Japan = door = doctor = student

Adverbs and Other Words:

= to be = not = yes = no

Greeting Words

When learning a language, people always want to learn hello, how are you, and thank you before anything else. I know that. However, at this stage you only know words - and have no knowledge or experience in how to use or conjugate these words.

The grammar within these words is too complex for you to understand right now.

However, you can just memorize these words as one unit and not worry about the

grammar within them at this point.

= hello

and are the two words that are commonly used to say "thank you." However, they are rarely used in those forms and are almost always conjugated. They can

be conjugated in a variety of ways, which you won't learn until Lesson 5 and Lesson 6. I

will show you a list of the more commonly used forms, but I can't stress enough that you

won't understand how this works until later lessons:


? = How are you Technically the appropriate expression in Korean, but not as common as "how are you"

in English. I would say that using " ?" is an English style of greeting people in Korean.

= Please (no complicated grammar construction)

It is, of course, important for you to memorize these expressions in Korean, but you need

to know that there is a reason why they are said that way. For now, dont worry about why they are said that way, and simply memorize them. We will get back to them in later

lessons when they become important.

Korean Sentence Structure

One of the hardest things to wrap your head around in Korean is the alien-like sentence

structure. Essentially, Korean sentences are written in the following order:

Subject Object Verb (for example: I hamburger eat), Or Subject Adjective (for example: I beautiful)

I am going to quickly explain what a subject and object mean, as your ability to understand later concepts depends on your understanding of this.

The subject refers to person/thing/noun/whatever that is acting. The subject does the

action of the verb. For example, the subject in each sentence below is underlined:

I went to the park

I will go to the park

My mom loves me

He loves me

The dog ran fast

The clouds cleared up

In English, the subject always comes before the verb.

The object refers to whatever the verb is acting on. For example, the object in each

sentence below is underlined

My mom loves me

The dog bit the mailman

He ate rice

Students studied Korean

In English, the object always comes after the verb. However, a sentence with a verb does

not require an object. For example:

I slept

I ate

He died


Sometimes there is no object because it has simply been omitted from the sentence. For

example, I ate or I ate rice are both correct sentences. Other verbs, by their nature, cannot act on an object. For example, you cannot place an object after the verbs sleep or die:

I sleep you

I die you

Subjects are also present in sentences with adjectives. However, there is no object in a

sentence with an adjective. The subjects are underlined in the following adjective-

sentences below:

School is boring

I am boring

The movie was funny

The building is big

My girlfriend is pretty

The food is delicious

It is incredibly important that you understand this from the very beginning. Every Korean

sentence MUST end in either a verb (like eat, sleep or walk) or an adjective (like

beautiful, pretty, and delicious). This rule is so important that Im going to say it again: Every Korean sentence MUST end in either a verb or adjective.

It is also important to point out here that there are two ways to say "I" or "me" in Korean.

Depending on how polite you need to be speaking, many things within a sentence (mostly

the conjugation) can change. You wont learn about the different honorific conjugations until Lesson 6, so you do not need to worry about understanding those until then.

However, before you reach those lessons, you will see two different words for "I," which

are:

, used in informal sentences, and , used in formal sentences.

As Lessons 1 - 5 make no distinction of formality, you will see both and arbitrarily used. Don't worry about why one is used over the other until Lesson 6, when politeness

will be explained.

Okay, now that you know all of that, we can talk about making Korean sentences.

Korean Particles (~/ and ~/) Most words in a Korean sentence have a particle (a fancy word to say something) attached to them. These particles indicate the role of each word in a sentence that is, which word is the subject or object. Note that there is absolutely no way of translating

these particles to English, as we do not use anything like them.

The following are the most common particles:


or (Subject) This is placed after a word to indicate that it is the subject of a sentence

Use when the last letter of the last syllable of the subject is a vowel. For example:: = =

Use when the last letter of the last syllable of the subject is a consonant. For example: = =

or This is placed after a word to indicate that is the object of a sentence.

Use when the last letter of the last syllable is a vowel: = =

Use when the last letter of the last syllable is a consonant: = =

We can now make sentences using the Korean sentence structure and the Korean

particles.

1) I speak Korean = I Korean speak is attached to "I" (the subject) is attached to "Korean" (the object)

2) I like you = I you like is attached to "I" (the subject) is attached to "you" (the object)

3) I wrote a letter = I letter wrote is attached to "I" (the subject) is attached to "letter" (the object)

4) I opened the door = I door opened is attached to I (the subject) is attached to the door (the object)

5) My mom will make pasta = My mom pasta will make is attached to my mom (the subject) is attached to pasta (the object)


I am sure that you will be tempted to start substituting Korean words into those

constructions to make real Korean sentences. However, at this point, that is too

complicated. The goal of this lesson is to familiarize yourself with the structure of

Korean sentences.

The same could be done for sentences with adjectives. However, remember that

sentences with adjectives will not have an object:

1) My girlfriend is pretty: My girlfriend is pretty is attached to "my girlfriend" (the subject)

2) The movie was scary = The movie was scary is attached to "the movie" (the subject)

There is one more particle that you should be aware of before we go any further.

(Place or time) We havent talked about places or times yet, but if you do an action at a time, you must

attach the particle to the word indicating the time. "" is also attached to a word to indicate that it is a place in the sentence. I want to write more about what "" does, but at this point, it would only confuse you. For now, it is sufficient to know that "" is used to indicate a place in a sentence. Again, it is hard to translate these particles into English, but, plays the role of the underlined words in the following sentences:

1) I went at 3pm

2) I went to the park

Sentences with a place/time can also have an object in them. For example:

3) I ate hamburgers at 3pm

If I were to write those same sentence using Korean structure and particles, they would

look like this:

1) I 3pm went 2) I park went 3) I hamburgers 3pm ate

In these cases, "at 3pm" or "to the park" act as adverbs (a word that tells you when, where,

how, how much). There is no set place for an adverb within a sentence, and it can

generally be placed anywhere (except the end). Adverbs will be discussed at length in

Lesson 8.


Again, the purpose of this first part of Lesson 1 was to familiarize yourself with the

different Korean particles and sentence structure. This knowledge will act as your base

for upcoming lessons when you will apply yourself to make actual sentences with

verbs/adjectives in Korean. While you will have to wait a little bit to create those types of

sentences, we can now talk about creating actual Korean sentences with the word "to be."

To be: Now it is time to learn how to make actual sentences in Korean using to be. English speakers dont realize how difficult this word actually is in English. Look at the following examples:

I am a man

He is a man

They are men

I was a man

They were men

In each of those sentences, the word be is represented by a different word (is/am/are/was/were) depending on the subject and tense of the sentence. Luckily, in

Korean, the same word is used to represent is, am, are, was and were. This word is

should not be thought of as a verb or an adjective in Korean, as in most cases it acts differently. I will teach you how differs from verbs and adjectives as it becomes important (in future lessons).

Sometimes however, is somewhat similar to adjectives. Remember that sentences ending with adjectives do not have objects in them. Whenever a sentence is predicated by

an adjective, there will be no object in the sentence. Only sentences with verbs have

objects. Lets look at some examples:

I eat hamburgers (eat is a verb, the object is a hamburger)

I meet my friend (meet is a verb, the object is my friend)

I study Korean (study is a verb, the object is Korean)

I listen to music (listen is a verb, the object is music)

All of those sentences (can) have objects because the verb is the predicate of the sentence.

However, in sentences that are predicated by adjectives, there will not be an object:

I am pretty I am beautiful

I am hungry I am smart

This means that we can never use the particle ~/ in a sentence predicated by an adjective (because ~/ denotes that there is an object). The object particle is also not used when using the word . The basic structure for a sentence predicated by is:


[noun /] [another noun] [], For example: I man = I am a man Now substitute the words for man and I:

= I = man + +

is attached directly to the noun. So, the above construction looks like: = I am a man

It is very important that you remember that ~/ is not attached to words in sentences with "." The following would be very incorrect: . is the only word that acts like this, and is one of the reasons why you should treat it differently than other verbs or adjectives.

The focus of this lesson (and Lessons 2 and 3) is to introduce you to simple Korean

sentence structure. Until you reach Lesson 5 and Lesson 6 you will not be exposed to the

conjugations and honorifics of Korean verbs, adjectives and . In reality, these words are never (or very very rarely) used without these conjugations and honorifics. Therefore,

while I stress the importance of understanding the structure of the sentences presented in

this Lessons 1, 2, 3 and 4 do not use the sentences in any form of communication with

Korean people, as they will most likely not be understood.

In order to completely understand what is presented in Lessons 5 and 6 (and for the rest

of your Korean studies), it is essential that you understand what is presented in these first

four lessons - even though they may be seen as "technically incorrect."

For all of the "technically incorrect" (un-conjugated) sentences presented in Lesson 1 - 4

I will provide a correct (conjugated) version of the same sentence in parenthesis below

the un-conjugated version (one formal and one informal conjugation). Note one more

time that you will not understand these conjugations until Lessons 5 and 6 (for verbs and

adjectives) and Lesson 9 (for ).

Other examples of in use: = I am a woman ( / )

= I am a teacher ( / )

______ = I am a _______ ( _______ / _____) You can substitute any word into the blank space to make these sentences.


This and That (//) You can see in the vocabulary above that the word for this is in Korean. We use in Korean when we are talking about something that is within touching distance (For example: this pen - i.e. the one I am holding). Just like in English "" (this) is placed before the noun it is describing. For example:

= This person = This man = This woman = This car = This table = This chair

Unfortunately, there are two words for that": and . English learners are always confused with the difference between "" and "."

We use when we are talking about something from a previous sentence. Providing examples would be too difficult right now because you do not know any Korean

sentences. However, if I were to say: "I dont like that man [when your friend mentioned

him in a previous sentence]." The word "that" in that sentence would be how "" is used.

We use when we are talking about something that we can see, but cannot touch because it is too far away.

Just like "" we can place "" or "" before a noun to describe "this" or "that" thing = That person = This person = That man = That woman = That thing = That thing = This thing = That chair = That table

We can now use these nouns as subjects or objects in a sentence. We will look at how

they can be used with "" next.

Using This/That with Remember, can be used to say am/is/are So, if we want to say this:

That person is a doctor, We can do that. First, we can start by putting those words into the Korean structure:


That person doctor is And then change the English words to the appropriate Korean words:

+ + ( / )

More examples:

= that person is a teacher ( / )

= this thing is a table ( / )

= that thing is a bed ( / )

= that person is a man ( / )

= that person is a woman ( / )

= that thing is a car ( / )

= this thing is a tree ( / )

Wow! That was an extremely difficult lesson. If you were to pick up another Korean

textbook, I am sure the first chapter would be much easier than this. Trust me though;

learning this at the start will be very useful to you later on. When I was learning how to

speak Korean, it took me months to realize some of these things (not because they were

hard, but because I was using a text book that never taught me the reason why things are

the way they are in Korean).

Before you move on, make sure you understand the simple Korean sentence structure

presented in this first lesson. Also, remember that these sentences are technically

incorrect (or very very uncommon) because they have not been conjugated.

howtostudykorean: unit 1 lesson 1

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