learning korean -한국어 연습-

2022년 12월 14일

나는 오늘도 시험을 봤어다. 내 마지막 시험이 내일이다. 왜 그런지는 모르겠지만, 오늘은 좀 우울했다 ㅠㅠ 너무 스트레스 받는다. 지금 내 시험을 공부를 해야한다 ㅠㅠ

- vocab to remember:

- 좀 우울했다: kinda down/ kinda depressed

- 받다: to receive

- i know that 모르다 means to not know, but you can also use “모르겠다” - to be lost, confused or puzzled.

naver dictionary also says that:

왜 그런지는 모르지만

1. without knowing why

2. somehow

2022년 12월 13일

오늘 나는 음악 이론 시험을 봤는데 잘 본 것 같다. 내일 시험 두 개를 볼 것이다서 열심히 공부 해야 한다. 학교 떠난 후에 우리 언니가 나와 우리 여동생을 위해 웬디의 식사를 샀다. 방학 전 마지막 시험은 목요일이다. 벌써 방학이 왔으면 좋겠다.. ㅠㅠ

- notes: i changed 봤다고 to 봤는데 because i think the translator said it was wrong so i have to review when to use 고, 어서, and 는데 ㅠㅠ.

vocab to remember:

- 음악 이론: music theory

(name of the course i took so?)

-떠나다 : to leave ?

-후에: after

- 전: before

- 식사: meal (i originally had 밥을 ㅠㅠ)

- 목요일: Thursday (i always forget the days of the week ㅠㅠ)

- 왔으면 좋겠다: to hope for something to come?

i changed it to this from 이미 여기에서 which prob didn’t make sense.

I want to explain to myself how to differentiate between these words because I say “I can’t speak Korean well” a lot, and i wanted to know the difference between these words, their meaning + nuisances. Please point out any errors!

these are mostly notes for me, but i hope it’s also helpful to anyone else who may find this. i’m still at a beginner level when it comes to korean learning, so i’m definitely not qualified to teach anything so pls lmk if anything is wrong and i’ll edit the post!

sources at the bottom.

Saying “can’t” in Korean.

못 (하다)/지 못하다- can’t

수 없다 - can’t

1. 못: Like the others, it translates to “can’t” in english, but it’s specifically used to stress that something cannot be done (specifically by the subject) because it is not possible given the circumstances. when using this, it only specifies that the subject can’t do *something* at the moment, not in general.

-ex: subject can’t do something because of an injury, personal reason…maybe not strong enough, etc.

-an adverb; can only be placed before a verb and not a noun. if a verb is a verb that contains a noun also, it’s placed in between.

난 공부 못 하다 = I can’t study

못 is placed in between the word 공부 (study/noun) and 하다 (to do/verb), however 공부하다 is one verb that means “to study”.

지 못하다 is just placed after an action verb stem. usually used in more formal situations.

also to stress that someone can’t do something because they’re bad at it. (can’t do something well)

Naver Dict. - (잘하지 못하다) be bad[poor] (at), be weak (in)

*note that 못하다 is one word unlike 못 하다

so, 못 하다 means one is unable to do something while 못하다 means that you’re bad at something.

2. (ㄹ/을)-수 없다: similar meaning to the 1st one. it is used in a situation to say that something is impossible due to certain circumstances for the subject. however, it’s especially used to stress that the subject can’t do something beyond their control.

you can remember this by breaking it down like this

수 = abilty

없다= to not have

ex: 나는 음식 없이는 살 수 없다. = i can’t live without food.

or basically, without food there is no ability/way to live.

-another way it differs from 못: 수 없다 will be used to stress a strong refusal to do something given the circumstances.

나는 내 전화기 없이 살 수 없다. = I can’t live without my phone.

Because of these differences, it may seem weird to use this form in certain situations. example:

I can’t speak Korean well:

나는 한국어를 잘 말하지 못한다 ✅

나는 한국어를 잘 말할 수 없다. ❌

because of the nature of 수 없다, it is weird to use it when saying that someone can’t speak Korean well, because it implies that speaking well is behind their control, or that it is impossible to do so.

2022년 12월 12일

오늘은 시험 시작되는 주였다. 10시 30분이라서 난 첫 시험을 봤다. 요즘 일기를 쓰는 것은 너무 어렵다. 너무 바빴다. 방학이 빨리 다가오고 있어서 행복하다. 방학동안, 나는 한국어를 더 열심히 공부할 것이다!

Words i didn’t know/ remember

방학 = vacation, holiday (break)

열심히= hard, diligently, enthusiastically

이미 = already

시작 = beginning (of)

시작되다 = to begin

바쁘다 = busy

다가오다 = to approach, draw near, come closer

쓰다 = to write

ok y’all…i don’t know if this is something that others relate to, but i know particularly when i first started learning korean, i would watch a lot of videos of tips/advice, n people would always stress that it was important to learn words that we use and that it’s not rlly good to just learn a ton of useless vocab that we’re never going to use. is it just me who still has trouble even figuring out what words i use more often/use everyday?

i remember when i first started writing my diary’s in korean (cuz i figured that it would help me to utilize the korean i was learning or help me to find more words to learn), there were days where i wasn’t doing much so then my diary’s would become really repetitive. while the repetition helped me a LOT to remember some words, i would also feel like my learning wasn’t progressing. bcuz of this, i would often feel unmotivated to continue my diaries unless i had something really exciting happen, but then i found myself needing to translate a lot of filler words which also overtime, became exhausting too 😭; i just started to feel like i wasn’t learning fast enough or well enough. i tried flash cards, and those did help a lot sometimes, but i found that i kind of..HATE flashcards and they don’t help as much when it comes to long-time memory for me. maybe i just need to do flashcards more often? but it’s kind of boring…

i think application works the best when it comes to learning vocab. i found that the words that i remember best were the words that were used most often in example sentences that i copied down from HTSK grammar lessons lmao (howtostudykorean.com is one of the resources i use, btw).

i want to expand on my vocab, but sometimes i have trouble even figuring out what words i use everyday. i think i got stuck in the cycle of saying the same things every day like..

“hi”, “good morning”, “did you eat”, “what are you doing?”, “how are you?” etc…

i know that i need to search words in the dictionary more often, so to enforce this, i think i will start doing daily vocab lists!! my goal is to record whatever words i want to translate and to do deeper dives on these words. instead of copying & pasting, i will do my best to write not only definitions but explanations , nuances, as well as tips to remember these words?

i’m doing this for me, but i also hope this will be helpful for anyone else who may be struggling with learning more koran vocab as well!!

하이!! 난 방금 텀블러 계정을 만들었다! 트위터에서 일기를 쓰기 시작했다고 이제는 여기에서도 일기를 스고 싶는다. 많은 어휘를 모르지만 이거가 나에게 도움이 될 거 같아는다!!

rough transl: - hi! i just made a tumblr account. i started writing diary’s on twitter, and now i want to write diary’s on her as well! i don’t know a lot of vocab, but i think this will help me. (??)

that’s what i wanted to say at least..please point out any mistakes..i’m a beginner 🙇🏽‍♀️