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Today Suna and Joop will cover a important topic as it’s applied in high frequency: ‘어때요’. 어때요 means ‘how about …’? You can apply this to everything, ‘how about my shoes?’ ‘how about some beer?’ etc.

It works as follows, when applied to a verb stem and noun:

-Verb(stem) + -는 거 어때요
-Noun + 어때요?

The dialogue:

• S: 뭘 사고 싶으세요?
• J: 운동화를 사고 싶어요.
• S: 여기 신발 가게가 있네요. 들어갑시다.
• C: 어서 오십시요
• J: 수나 씨, 이 운동화 어때요?
• S: 좋아요. 멋있어요.
• J: 아줌마, 이 운동화 얼마예요?
• C: 이만 오천원이에요.

If you had your fair share of talks with Koreans, or watched a few Korean drama’s, one of the thing you will notice is the use of E. Later, you will realize they say something like ESO. What is the difference between the too? Today, Suna and Joop are recording this explanation live from a Korean bathhouse.

Examples:

에서:

1. 네덜란드 에서 왔어요 – I came from Netherlands (FROM)
2. 학교에서 공부해요 – “I study at school” (AT)

에:

1. 중국에 갔어요. I went to China (TO)
2. 방에 있어요. I am in the room (E is your presence/ exist)

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On hover translation:

You can learn a language from a textbook, but having real conversations speeds up your learning efforts a lot. This is why I decided to change the primary language of my computer to Korean. Now, most websites and programs greet me in Korean, and I read and interact a whole lot more!

However, I noticed that I seldomly look up new words, slowing down my work and thus became frustrated with my latest language experiment.

I found that many of my Korean friends use windows PC’s, which provide real time translation of the word they point at with their mouse. Holy moly, that’s amazing! This is very useful because you read the active word and can see a active translation in a small on-screen widget. You are forced to think in the foreign language first, then you have your dictionary immediately ready to refer to. They tell me they learn English quickly using this system, i’m jealous!

I had been looking for an app for macintosh OSX for some time but without luck, until I came across TranslateIt! today. It’s exactly what I had been looking for! Let me show you an example:

OSX programs including Finder:

and web browsing:

How to set it up:

1. Download and install the translateit! app from their website. (I choose without popular dictionaries)

2. Download a dictionary, i got this one but there are many mentioned on the translateit website. (bottom)

3. locate the downloaded dictionary by clicking ‘dictionary’ -> ‘+’ and then ‘install from local directory’.

4. Lastly, change your primary language to korean (한국어) and restart/relogin to your MAC OSX account.

Done!

PS: we are not affiliated by creator of the translatit! program, or the dictionary. We just think it’s awesome!

Hi weeklykorean fans. I’m having an exam on the 25th. Hopefully passing my beginner course and moving further in the Korean language sphere. I will make flash cards (online) to study the required for the test and will post them on weekly korean for the interested people. i will double check the flash cards with google translate so they should be perfect. By any case, if you do find a problem, let me know!

Choose a Study ModeScatterLearnFlashcards

Study these flash cards

을 (eul) and 를 (reul) are the last postposition we’ll cover. As said before, postpositions change the noun into the subject of the verb.

신문을 봅니다 – I read a newspaper.
커피를 마십니다 – I drink a cup of coffee.
수영을 합니다 – I swim
지우개를 삽니다 – I buy an eraser.

Head, shoulders, knee and toe is a famous children song. The children song is combined with a ‘dance’, where the children would point at the body parts. Do it one time, and you’ll never forget these words! Oh, the intro of the song is in English, second time switch to Korean.

Today we will cover the first postpostions: 가 (Ka) and 이 (i).

What are postpositions?

Postpositions are used to define the case of a noun, or the grammatical relation between the words. Postpositions do not exist in the English language so this will be a abstract description.

가 (Ka) and 이 (i):

Both these postpositions are used to define the subject in the sentence. Just glue it to the end of a noun and you are all set.  The difference between the two is defined by the ending of noun – note that you would use 가 (Ka) without a batchim, and 이 (i) when there is a batchim :

For the geeks in the front raising their hands: There is never a space between postpositions and the attached word.

Examples:

1. 저기가 우체국입니다. (jeogiga uchegug-ibnida) – There is the post office.
   저기 (There) is marked  with 가 (ka) to make it into a subject. In this case it’s 가 (ka) because the character in front doesn’t contain a batchim.
2. 이름이 뭐에요? (ileum-i mwo-eyo?) – What’s your name?
   이름 (Name) is marked with (이) i to make it into a subject. In this case it’s 이 (i) because the character in front does contain a batchim.

(subject in red, predicate in purple, copulate in orange)

With all the logic in place, I think it just sounds better too. The sentence ‘rolls’ more don’t you think? Without it, it wouldn’t sound smooth: 이름 뭐에요 (ileummwo-eyo?), instead of 이름이 뭐에요 (ileum-i mwo-eyo). Furthermore, saying (ileum-ka mwo-eyo?) would just sound silly so don’t get me started!

Main take away: Stick a ‘KA’ behind if there isn’t a batchim, use a good old ‘I’ if there is!

받침 (Batchim) is a reference to a the final consonant in a Korean syllable.

Simply said, when you look at a korean syllable, the 받침 (Patchim) comes last; usually the case when when the noun ends in a consonant.

Every final consonant is '받침'

The word 받침 (Patchim) means tray, just like you would put your lemon juice on a tray, also Korean letters can lay on a tray.

Sources:
Koreanwikiproject

The uncle of Suna compiled these neat colorful charts for learning Korean, which proved useful when I mastered my intonations. I decided to share his work for others that want to learn as well! Note: The grey characters indicate low usage. You’re invited to leave a “thank you” in the comments when you use them!

The pictures are A4 sized, click on them for full view.

Written Script

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