Korean Made Simple, Ch 8 Notes
It’s even more questions today! (I say this like it hasn’t been a couple of weeks since I cracked open this book.)
Guess what? It’s MORE SPECIFIC questions.
The Verb Stem (으)러
You used (으)러 when you want to say “to go to do something” or “to come to do something.” There are way too many instances of “to” in that last sentence.
Basically, questions like “When do you want to go eat?” or “Where do you want to go see that?”
YOU WILL NEVER USE THIS VERB STEM WITHOUT A VERB THAT SHOWS MOVEMENT. The main examples are 가다 (to go) and 오다 (to come).
So for example:
to go to eat
먹으러 가다
to go to sleep
자러 가다
to come to work
일러 오다
NOTICE: you use 으러 after words ending in consonants and 러 after words ending in vowels or the letter ㄹ. (Because ㄹ is often the exception in these cases anyway .
Using 밥
밥 literally means “cooked rice” but it commonly used to denote a meal in Korea. (It makes sense, because rice is a huge staple.)
Generally, you don’t want to say something like 저는 먹습니다. While grammatically correct, you don’t want to use it unless the person you are speaking to know what you’re eating.
Why? No idea. Just do it.
어디 에 and 어디 이다
어디 means “where,” which you can use without 에 if you want to. Usings 어디 에 simply emphasizes “where to” or “where at” rather than just “where.”
You can also use 어디 with the verb 이다 to ask where something is instead of using 있다.
For example, 책이 어디입니까? instead of 책이 어디 있습니까?
Same basic meaning, just less of a mouthful to say, I guess.
More on Subject Markers
HECK YES MORE ON THESE THINGS THEY CONFUSE ME SO.
Subject markers mark the subject in the sentence. (Surprise.) They are different than the topic marker. (Also a surprise.)
Refresher: subject markers are 이 and 가.
Basically he says use them for now if there are a lot of verbs in your sentence, but here is the REALLY important part:
Say you are using 누구, which is “who.” If you are going to use a subject marker, it would come out as 누구가, but that’s a mouthful so just use 누가.
IMPORTANT QUESTION THAT I DO NOT HAVE THE ANSWER FOR
Does Korean not have commas??????????????
Last Thoughts
Nouns combine together in Korean the same way they do in English. (Nice.)
알겠습니다 is used to say “I see” or “Understood.”
그러면 means “well then” and can only be used in the beginning of a sentence.
우리 means “we” or “us” and can be used just like “저.”
