Since we covered one kind of to-from in the last post I thought we should look at another kind today.
Our words are: 부터 and 까지! I’m fairly sure that if you’ve listened to Korean music or watched a drama or two you’ve heard the sentence “머리부터 발끝까지...” for me this sentence is followed up by saying “Hot issue”.. actually it’s sung, not spoken.. *sigh*... I feel so old.
So “머리부터 발끝까지...” means “from the head to the end of the foot”, I think perhaps they thought 발가락 (toe) sounded too long, but I don’t know. As you can see both 부터 and 까지 come after a noun.
Sometimes 에/에서 and 부터-까지 can be interchangeable as they both me to-from. So when do you use what? 에 and 에서 are used mostly to mark locations and are therefore called location-marking particles. 부터-까지 are not location-marking but indicate the beginning and end of something. They can be used together or on their own. Often they are used to mark time but in a broader view, it can be categorised as how far something stretches.
부터 has the meaning of “from” or “starting at”.
까지 has the meaning of “to” or “ending at” or “until”.
오늘부터 운동을 할거예요.
I’ll start working out from today.
먹어부터 해요.
First thing I’ll do is eat.
올 때까지 기다릴게요.
I’ll wait until you come.
여기까지 끝이에요.
It stops here.
아침부터 저녁까지 안 먹었어요.
I didn’t eat anything all day (from morning to evening).
얼굴부터 성격까지 모든 걸 나빠예요.
From his looks to his personality, everything about him is bad.
As you can see, most of our examples are about stretches in time but the last one is about just how much of that guy is unbearable because it stretches far and wide.
A lot of the time when you translate from Korean to English you’ll not actually translate 부터-까지, because it makes for awkward, unnatural sentences but it’s important you know what it means and when to use them when you speak Korean.
Now I know I said it’s not a location-marking particle and it’s not but you will see it with locations from time to time when that happens it’s usually about duration/distance between locations, or where your journey (or such) begins or ends. So if you’re just saying that you’re going from somewhere you’d use 에서 but if you’re saying the starting point is from somewhere you’d use 부터.
카페에서 거기까지 갈 게요.
I’m going there from the cafe.
카페부터 거기까지 갈 게요.
I’m going there from the cafe.
Spot the difference in translation - there is none. But in Korean, it is now implied that the cafe is the very start of your journey. Personally, I think it’d be more natural if it’s your home but this is a made up example.
I hope it makes it clearer if not there’s always our inbox!
선생의 손가락에서 학생들의 눈까지 this has been 부터-까지!