Korean Counters
Yesterday I learned about Korean counters and let me tell you: I don’t think I’ll ever be able to remember them. Because in Korean you need to use different counters for counting different things. In both English and German, you just count people/animals/things like this: 1 person, 2 people, 3 people, 4 people, etc. (1 Person, 2 Personen, 3 Personen, 4 Personen, etc).
In Korean, the counter for people is “ 명 “. This goes for all words that are people. Like students, teachers, doctors, taxi drivers, etc. They all use the counter “ 명 “. For example, 2 people means 사람 두 명. Easy, right? Now let me tell you that there seems to be a different counter for literally everything.
Here’s the most commonly used counters:
Things – 개
People – 명
Animals – 마리
Slices – 조각
Books – 권
Bottles – 병
Clothing – 벌
Days – 일
Months – 월
Years – 년
But there’s probably like 3 times this many counters alltogether. But because Koreans themselves often can’t think of the correct counter for something rando at the top of their head, they just tend to use the counter “ 개 “ instead of less commonly counters as well.
So if all fails and you just can’t think of the correct counter to use for a certain thing, then it’s perfectly fine to just use “ 개 “ as a counter.
Now, to use these counters, it goes like this: Noun + Number + Counter. It’s pretty easy actually. The numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and 20 change a bit for easier pronounciation.
1 = 하나 → 한
2 = 둘 → 두
3 = 셋 → 세
4 = 넷 → 네
20 = 스물 → 스무
Let’s, again, use the word 사람 (people) and the counter 명.
1 person = 사람 한 명
2 people = 사람 두 명
3 people = 사람 세 명
4 people = 사람 네 명
5 people = 사람 다섯 명
6 people = 사람 여섯 명
7 people = 사람 일곱 명
8 people = 사람 여덟 명
9 people = 사람 아홉 명
10 people = 사람 열 명
20 people = 사람 스무 명
For things other than people, just change the noun & add the right counter instead of 명.
