humans-of-seoul:

“망년회, 신년회 많이 했는데 마냥 유쾌하지만은 않았어요. 아직 일자리를 많이 못 갖고 힘들어 하는 친구들이 많아서 지금은 서로 눈치 보면서 만나거든요. 다 같이 만나보면 오히려 취업을 한 친구들의 마음이 더 불편한 것 같아요. 제가 이제 29살인데 제 나이 때가 그래요. 누구는 잘 되고 누구는 안 되고…”

“I went to a lot of end-of-year and New Year’s parties but they weren’t always that fun. A lot of my friends are having a hard time and still can’t really find jobs, so we had to be careful about what we said to each other . When we all meet up, it ends up being the friends with jobs that are the ones feeling the worst. I’m 29 now and that’s what it’s like at my age. You see things work out for some and not for others…”

superbkorean:

열다 [yeolda] “To open”

닫다 [dadda] “To close”

superbkorean:

→

Transport
차 [cha] “Car”
기차 [gicha] “Train”
버스 [beosu] “Bus”
오토바이 / 모토바이 [otobai/motobai] “Motorbike”
자전거 [jajeongeo] “Bicycle”
배 [be] “Ship, boat”
지하철 [jiacheol] “Subway”

반짝반짝 한국어 s01e06:

시간제 일자리

podcast and transcript

reportinglivefromkorea:

Their textbook had a part about texting abbreviations so i asked my middle schoolers to teach me some Korean ones. Here are the interesting ones I’ve collected that I didn’t know before. I couldn’t get more because that’s when i was hospitalized but here’s the best from the classes i did teach:

버카충 – charging your bus card (버스 카드 충전)

세젤예/세젤귀- most beautiful/cutest in the world ( 세상에 제일 예쁜/귀여운)

낄끼빠빠 – Know when to get involved and when to stay out of it AKA have some nunchi bitch (낄때 끼고 빠질때 빠

져라)

셤- test (시험)

아점 – brunch (아침겸점심)

걸크러쉬 – badass girl who will crush you / strong type

생선 – bday gift (생일 선물)

존못 – freaking/fucking ugly (존나 못생겼다)

존잘 – freaking/fucking handsome (존나 잘생겼다)

귀가 얇다 = Easily influenced (lit. ears are thin)

Hi! I’m a high beginner/low intermediate in Korean and I’m starting to have an interest in 한자 but I don’t know how to start learning them ㅠㅠ since I can’t buy books right now, the only way to learn them is through the internet. Do you know how I should start learning them with zero knwoledge in 한자? 땡큐!! ^^

studiousbees:

nocturnalinseoul:

Just memorize the meanings. I don’t think you need to learn them all. Sorry if this is not helpful at all. I don’t personally learn them.

Mind if I throw in my own two cents? You certainly don’t need to know Hanja to be successful at Korean—in fact, I wouldn’t recommend touching it until you’re already at a pretty comfortable level so you don’t feel bogged down or confused. However, I personally find it fun and useful, and here’s why:

Think of Hanja as being like prefixes and suffixes and such in English. If you know what the prefix “un-” means, you can understand a lot of words that start with “un-” and you can generalize it to form new words. Of course, you could just learn the whole word “unhappy” on its own, but it’s far more useful to understand that it is “un + happy.” Hanja is similar in that they are the building blocks and components of a lot of words. Just through studying Korean you will gain a sort of passive understanding of Hanja—just like how English has “un-,” Korean has the negative prefix “부/불,” and so on—so really studying it in its own right isn’t really necessary. However, especially when you get to more advanced vocabulary, it can be great to know! Especially when you consider that sometimes there are words in Korean that can be translated similarly into English (for example, 결심하다 and 결정하다), being able to sort of feel the difference and nuance between the two based on their different components is a good skill to have.

Again, whether or not you want to study Hanja is up to, well, you! I enjoy writing them and learning their meanings and being able to understand the words more deeply (and sometimes I get to make connections between Korean and Chinese, which I find helpful for my studies!) but you definitely don’t need to sit down and learn to write all the characters and read them and know their exact meanings. I did it because I found it fun, but… wow, I’m rambling. Yeah, my point is, you don’t need to be familiar with the Hanja themselves, but being able to recognize and parse words by their components has been, to me, useful and enjoyable.

If anyone is interested, I can throw together a quick post on how I studied Hanja before 🙂

superbkorean:

시장 [sijang] “Open market”

의심 = Doubt, suspicion, question
疑 (Doubt) 心 (Mind, heart, feeling)

지금 나를 의심하는 겁니까? = What, you don’t believe me?
의심받을 짓은 하지 마라 = Don’t do anything suspicious.

의도 = Intention, aim, purpose
意 (Intention, thought) 圖 (Map, plan, scheme)

거짓말을 할 의도는 없었다 = I didn’t mean to lie.
의도했던 대로 일이 진행되고 있다 = The project is going just as I intended.
질문하시는 의도가 무엇입니까? = What is your intention in asking the question?
그럴 의도는 아니었다 = I didn’t mean it.

의지 = Lean on, rely on
依 (Depend, Rely) 支 (Support, raise)

그는 내가 의지할 수 있는 유일한 사람이다 = He’s the only person I can depend on.
그는 벽에 몸을 의지하고 간신히 서 있었다 = He barely managed to remain standing by leaning against the wall.

의존 = Depend on, rely on
依 (Depend, Rely) 存 (Exists)

그는 기억에 의존해 길을 찾아갔다 = He relied on his memory to find the way.
그녀는 의존적인 성격을 버리지 못했다 = She hasn’t grown out of her dependent personality.

의지 = Will, volition
意

(Intention, thought)

志 (Will, aspiration, ambition)

그는 자신의 의지로 담배를 끊었다 = He quit smoking out of his own will.
그렇게 의지가 약해서 무슨 일을 하겠어요? = What can you do with such a weak will?

의욕 = Will, desire, drive
意 (Intention, thought)

欲 (Desire)

그는 업무 의욕을 상실한 것 같다 = He seems to have lost all his drive to work.
그녀는 이혼 후 삶에 대한 의욕을 잃었다 = She lost the will to live after the divorce.