매튜의 한국어 연습 블로그

인쇄, 복사 의뢰서 - A written request for some copies.

At my work, we have a small half sheet sized form to fill out in if one would like to make mass copies. I like it because if I want a crapton of sheets like my biweekly spelling quiz printed on recycled paper, I use the service. The form itself is simple to fill out once you know what each description means:

용도: which class is this for? 6th grade English? After-school math?
매수: how many copies do you need?
사용일: date that you need it by
사용면: single sided (단면) or double sided (양면)
갱지: recycled paper (재생용지)
복사지: normal white paper
신청자: your name (person who requests)
*결재: stamp of approval

Here's a few copy related terms that also might help:
복사해도 될까요? Should I copy this? / Can I copy this?
복사하다 to copy
프린트 print
프린트 해주세요 Please print this for me
복사기 copy machine
이면지 reusable paper
이면지를 사용하세요 please use recycled paper
이 종이는 이면지예요 this paper is reusable/recycled paper
재활용 recycling
이 종이는 재활용 할 수 있어요 you can recycle this paper
이 종이는 재활용 상자에 넣어주세요 please place the paper into the recycle bin

*note to be confused with 결제: pay the account, make up account

I'm not sure if this will turn into a regular thing but I learned a very helpful thing last night at class. But before I get into that, a brief explanation. I learned early on in my studies that 의 is a tricky character. It represents the possessive "s" (as in 효연의 머리 스타일 "Hyoyeon's hairstyle") as well as a root for many other words. My first tutor would point out that I could pronounce 의 differently in certain situations. However, I didn't know the actual rule. Last night clarified a question I had for over three years.

Depending on the placement of 의 in a word determines its pronunciation. A brief breakdown:

First placement: e.g. 의자, 의사, 의미 = /의/
Second placement: e.g. 회의, 거의  = /이/
Last position: e.g. 선생님의, 아저씨의 = /에/

Update: part two of my thoughts on this one. part one.

I get flustered trying to do the whole sequencing thing in Korean. Like all good students, I learned the "후에" grammar point first. As a means of learning more accurate ways to express order, I am introduced to ~고 나서. When A is finished B will happen (or did happen). Instead of saying "퇴근시간 후에 청국장을 먹었어요" one should say "퇴근하고 나서 청국장을 먹었어요". "~고 나서" does not express tense. Whether A and B already happened or they will happen, either way, the connector stays the same. The tense is reflected in the last verb. It's similar to ~고 but 고 does not imply order.

Examples:

밥을 먹고나서 수업을 다닐거예요
After I eat, I'm going to go to class.

형을 전화하고나서 낮잠을 잤어요
After I called my friend, I took a nap

보통 아침 7시에 일어나고서 식사를 해요.
Normally, after I wake up, I eat breakfast.

친구들랑 식사하고 나서 노래방에 갔어요
After I ate with some friends, we went to a 노래방.

It's not a hard grammar point to learn but it doesn't always sound right. The problem is in translating directly from English to Korean. For example, I want to say "After teaching, I'll check" so I think to myself "가르치고나서 확인할게요". Although it seems it would be fine, this is really not very natural to say at all. Unfortunately, the grammar point brought up in this post does not fully apply here, either. Instead, ~면 is more commonly used. Obviously the direct translation of 수업끝나면 확인할게요 is "If class ends, I'll check" the implication is more like "when" instead if "if". But don't we already have a "when" clause?

Confused? Join the club.

I normally don't crosspost but this clearly relates to learning Korean. Check out the writeup on Hanja over at my history blog.

I've been tackling Hanja lately and it's not as bad as I thought...but then again, I just got past numbers. I can now officially write the days of the week, the numbers 1 through 10, 100, 1000, and that's about it. We all have to start somewhere and I started at the 3rd grade book from my school. Hey you gotta use what you can get your hands on. My school produces its own Hanja workbook starting from grade 3 so that's what I'm going through now. I write a little bit each day in between classes to keep up the muscle memory.

I'm also using a great little book that's a bit tricky to find but is extremely useful. I'll give it a proper writeup soon enough. It's called Useful Chinese Characters for Learners of Korean. Here's a short review. UPDATE: full review here.

Why does this one confuse me? Well, it goes back to the whole subject versus object discussion. If it's a subject, use 좋아. If it's an object, use 좋아하다. Try not to think of it as "if you like the subject" or "if you like the object" because that's a bit misleading. Plus, one type of thought can easily be expressed a number of different ways. For example:
소녀시대 중에서 누가 제일 좋아?
소녀시대 중에서 누구를 제일 좋아해?

Both loosely mean "Who is your favorite member in 'Girl's Generation'?" but one uses 좋아 and the other uses 좋아하다. Confused? As simple as it is, I get it messed up from time to time. I shouldn't but I do.

A trick that might help is to think of the root. 좋아하다 is a 하다 verb. 하다 is to do something. If you like to do something, then it's 좋아하다 as in "운동 좋아해요?" (Do you like to exercise?) makes more sense than "운동 좋아요?" which makes virtually no sense. If you want to ask if someone likes the act of exercising, perhaps what you mean to ask is "운동 하기 좋아요?" which would, to my best translation, be the same as I the first example but only less common.

Lastly, I've once heard the explanation that 좋아하다 is only used for active verbs but I couldn't tell you the first thing about active versus non-active verbs let alone verify if that trick actually works.

UPDATE: TTMIK has a great lesson on this very subject

Easily the most embarrassing grammar point to mess up.

I know why I get it messed up. Since the subject is omitted in Korean so much, I forget exactly what I'm talking about from time to time. Also, the object doesn't always need to be said....but, when you want to say it, what does one say?

I know what's the main idea of the sentence but having to stop and give it a marker is a bit trying when one is talking at a normal speed can be frustrating. To help myself, I ask myself some questions. Take this sentence "효연 봤어", Let's break it down:

Who saw 효연? I did. I'm the one talking so clearly it was me that saw her.
Who did the subject see? 효연. (self-thought) She's an object of my fantasy (also the object of the sentence). Therefore, "내가 효연을 봤어요." would be appropriate. Too bad no one talks like that...

It should be noted that the whole "oh you don't need it" excuse is both lazy and bad advice. Sure, for simple sentences, it isn't needed but once someone is trying to move from basic baby sentences to complete thoughts, these markers are essential to keeping up the conversation and staying understood. Don't be scared, get comfortable with these markers and only when situation calls for mutual understanding should one start to drop them. Just my two cents.

Title: Roadmap to Korean
Author: Richard Harris
Paperback: 350 pages
Publisher: Hollym International Corporation; 2 edition (November 3, 2003)
ISBN-10: 1565911873
ISBN-13: 978-1565911871

There's a lot of resources out there for students of Korean. Some are written by Koreans for he benefit of foreigners. Most of said resources are laughably bad while few and far between are quite good. On the other hand, some are written by foreigners for the benefit of other foreigners. Most of said resources are either for learning slang or are simply MIA. An exceptional resource is Richard Harris's Roadmap to Korean. His previous effort, interestingly enough, is also hard to find and also very valuable (Faces of Korea).

Don't let the textbook-like cover fool you because this is a resourceful heart-to-heart conversational with you and the author. Harris has compiled his personal notes, stories, charts, tips and tricks all into this neatly presented package. Imagine a super-awesome blog written on paper. It's a very light read and written casually; almost spoken-like. The author has lots of advice to give whether you've never studied the language before or have been for years. There's some history and culture as well as some grammar pitfalls and speaking taboos that are enough to learn from as well as laugh at. His perspective is golden and there's a lot to learn from his book, make no mistake.

I don't have much to say about this book that hasn't already been said. It's a great guide. The only thing I want to criticize is the author's plea to learn hanja. Although I also strongly encourage learning hanja because of its usefulness, he does little in terms of pointing one in the right direction of how to actually study hanja. A minor gripe for such a fabulous study guide. Yes, this book is enough to warrant me saying the word "fabulous".

I would also like to point out that this book is the book I should have written. If I ever had aspirations to publish a "Guide to Study Korean" book, this would have been it. Everything to the comical voice to the practical breakdown of a simple phrase such as "How are you?" Thanks a lot Harris for beating me to the punch and doing a better job than I probably would have done.

I wish I read this years ago.

I'm surprised it took me so long to buy, read, review, use this book. I really could have used this a lot a year ago, two years ago. Anyway, if you know someone starting out in Korean or who is truly eager to learn more, I can think of no better book to recommend.