Tag: asks

Have you ever considered teaching others Korean through lessons if they asked?

Hi, thanks for your question :). Tbh I’m not really qualified to teach Korean and I’m only intermediate level myself. I especially couldn’t help you with pronunciation or spotting your mistakes like a native or professional could! I wouldn’t want to risk teaching people incorrect or incomplete information. Honestly, I’ve seen other people on tumblr doing that quite often. There are a lot of good websites which provide (free) lessons online already though and that’s how I learn myself (check my /tagged/resources).  

I’m happy to tell you what I know if you have specific questions though! I actually have considered getting qualified to teach Korean in the future since I love teaching, and the Korean language, but I don’t think I’m able to do that now! 

Hi! I was just wondering if you could recommendd me good online EnglishKorean dictionary. I started Korean during the previous semester and I’d like to improve myself outside the classes as well. I’m a Japanese major student and for my Japanese I find fairly useful Tangorin dictionary with examples and things like that and I wanted to know if you by any chance don’t know about something similar for Korean. If not sorry for bothering you~ Have a nice day ^^

Hi, it’s no bother! I use Naver Dictionary which I like because it usually has pretty good example sentences. It also often gives entries on idioms and expressions and usages notes. Also, when your level gets high enough to read Korean explanation you can use it to look up Hanja (Chinese characters) and more in depth discussions of word usage. 

Lots of people use Daum Dictionary, too. And this is unrelated, but Dongsa Conjugation Dictionary can be useful especially for verbs with irregular conjugation. 

Do you know what the name is for verbs that are modified because they are being acted on a second person? Like your doing them on/for someone else? For example 웃기다, 울리다, 재우다, 먹이다? I’m hoping to find a standard rule for going from one form to another i.e. 먹다 -> 먹이다 but can’t figure out where to look without a name. Thanks so much! And thank you even if you don’t have an answer, your blog is really helpful!

Hi! I believe they are called causative verbs. There are some general rules about which suffix to use depending on what letter the original verb ends with, but there are many exceptions and sometimes you just have to memorise them! Here’s a good list of the rules from TTMIK.

Hi! I was wondering – do you have any advice on Korean pronunciation? I am currently horrible at pronouncing Korean, so any advice would help! ALSO – my Kakaotalk id is @smileyulli , if anyone wants to talk, just for encouraging each other or whatever! Thanks!!!

Hi! Well, practising with native speakers and asking them to correct your pronunciation is the best way. You can do this during language exchange or perhaps put recordings of your speaking on Lang-8. Learning the pronunciation rules is really important if you haven’t already. Also just practice to train your mouth! Read out-loud whenever you’re reading and follow along/mimic the pronunciation when you’re listening to something.  

hi! so i trying to self learn korean but im having a hard time. Can you recommend a structure to follow when learning? like i can read hangul, really slowly tho, and pronouncing a lot of blocks together is hard.. so should i keep practicing hangul until it comes natural (altho i dont understand a thing) and then move to voc and grammar or shoud i start right away and practice my hangul on the way? thanks for the answer!

Hi, I personally went straight into vocab and grammar after learning hangul and I think that actually helped me memorise the pronunciation and made things a lot easier. Because I used TalkToMeInKorean there was also romanisation, so for the first few lessons I could check that if forgot the pronunciation of any of the Korean letters (which I did a lot). But only as a back up and don’t rely on romanisation once you’ve memorised hangul! 

As for structuring the rest, it’s best to follow lessons from a book or website (resources). Some people ask whether they should learn vocab or grammar first, and the answer is both together! Lessons will usually teach a grammar point, with new vocab in examples or perhaps as a vocab list, and I’d really recommend learning both. Other than that, practising everything you learn through lang-8, the hellotalk app, and reading and listening resources is really important to be able to use Korean. 

Do you prefer electronic/digital flash cards or physical ones? I’m torn because I like having electronic ones on Quizlet but I also really like writing them down and making them pretty.

Honestly I don’t use either. I know Quizlet is helpful though. Why don’t you do both and use Quizlet for most things then make pretty physical flaschards for important words, or words you like, or words about a particular subject. But really just do what you enjoy and what helps you remember best! 

whats 갖다 붙이나?

I don’t think I’m really qualified to answer this and tbh I’ve never heard the term before but 갖다 = to have and 붙이다 = to attach something to something. From the example sentences on naver dictionary and this article I’d say it either means a physical attachment such as

그가 그녀의 두 팔을 잡아 꼼짝 못하게 옆구리에 갖다 붙였다 (= He grabbed her arms and pinned them to her sides) or a more metaphorical attachment or ‘application’ of concepts such as terminology, role ect. (용어를 갖다 붙이다 = Apply the term…) If anyone else knows better please let us know :).