Learn how to use honorific speech to show respect to those you are speaking to
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Seol: 안녕하세요. 윤설입니다. |
| Hyunwoo: 안녕하세요. 선현우입니다. |
| Keith: Keith here. El Grande Salsaria. |
| Seol: Good pronunciation. |
| Keith: Yeah. Well Hyunwoo you studied a little Spanish. Can you do it? |
| Hyunwoo: I am not sure but El Grande Salsaria. |
| Keith: Oh that sounded better than me. I studied Spanish for 6 years in junior high school and high school and |
| Hyunwoo: Wow! |
| Keith: I still can’t do the Rrrr |
| Seol: 우와 |
| Keith: And I forgot everything by the way. But in today’s lesson, we are talking about something that has to do with Spanish, something Mexican with a little spicy flavor to it. |
| Seol: Uh-huh. |
| Hyunwoo: Sounds exciting. |
| Seol: 저 멕시코 요리 먹고 싶어요. |
| Hyunwoo: Are you buying? |
| Seol: Yeah why not? I got a paycheck today. |
| Hyunwoo: Wow 고마워요. 갑시다 지금. |
| Keith: All right. So we are continuing our conversation with 아저씨 Mr. and Hyejin and once again, what kind of politeness level are these two using? |
| Seol: They are using intimate politeness level. |
| Keith: This situation is not so common. Is it? |
| Hyunwoo: It’s not. 혜진 is using 반말 to 아저씨 but she is supposed to use 존댓말 instead of 반말, right? |
| Keith: Polite language. |
| Hyunwoo: Yeah because he is older and she should be respectful. |
| Keith: So just to go over it really quickly, what kind of relationship might they have? |
| Seol: They must be really close and 아저씨 might be a family friend. |
| Keith: Maybe she grew up with him, maybe he is a very, very close friend of her dad. |
| Seol: Right, right and… |
| Hyunwoo: 아마도 |
| Seol: Maybe she has known him for her whole life. |
| Keith: So please keep in mind that this conversation is not very common. If you are meeting someone who is older than you and even if you are very close to them, this might not be proper politeness level to use. So please be careful with the politeness levels that you use. All right, so what’s going on in today’s conversation? |
| Seol: 아저씨 is asking 혜진 about her mother’s health and it doesn’t seem very good. |
| Keith: And because for some reason, 아저씨 is respecting her mother. How do we say mother? |
| Hyunwoo: 엄마 |
| Keith: Or |
| Hyunwoo: 어머니 |
| Keith: And he is very respectful because he is using 어머니 and he is also using the honorific infix 시 which is our grammar point. So remember to listen in for 어머니 and 시. Alright so let’s listen in. |
| DIALOGUE |
| 아저씨: 어머니는 괜찮으셔? |
| 혜진: 아니... |
| 아저씨: 왜? 아프셔? |
| 혜진: 응... 엄마는 아퍼. |
| 아저씨: 왜? 어디가 아프셔? |
| 혜진: 배가 아퍼. |
| 아저씨: 어떻게? |
| 혜진: 우리 동네에 멕시코 식당이 있어. 멕시코 요리를 먹었어. |
| 아저씨: 어?! 혹시... "엘 그란데 살사리아"? |
| 혜진: 응. 어떻게 알았어? |
| 아저씨: (주먹을 올리고..) 아!!! "엘 그란데 살사리아!!!!!! |
| ajeossi: eomeonineun gwaenchanheusyeo? |
| hyejin: ani... |
| ajeossi: wae? apeusyeo? |
| hyejin: eung... eommaneun apeo. |
| ajeossi: wae? eodiga apeusyeo? |
| hyejin: baega apeo. |
| ajeossi: eotteoke? |
| hyejin: uri dongnee mekssiko sikttangi isseo. mekssiko yorireul meogeosseo. |
| ajeossi: eo?! hokssi... "el grande salsaria"? |
| hyejin: eung. eotteoke arasseo? |
| ajeossi: a!!! "el grande salsaria!!!" |
| Seol: 영어로 한 번 더 |
| 아저씨: 어머니는 괜찮으셔? |
| Man: Is your mother all right? |
| 혜진: 아니... |
| Hyejin: No... |
| 아저씨: 왜? 아프셔? |
| Man: What? Is she sick? |
| 혜진: 응... 엄마는 아퍼. |
| Hyejin: Yeah...she's sick. |
| 아저씨: 왜? 어디가 아프셔? |
| Man: What? What's wrong? |
| 혜진: 배가 아퍼. |
| Hyejin: Her stomach hurts. |
| 아저씨: 어떻게? |
| Man: What happened? |
| 혜진: 우리 동네에 멕시코 식당이 있어. 멕시코 요리를 먹었어. |
| Hyejin: There's a Mexican restaurant in our neighborhood. We had Mexican food. |
| 아저씨: 어?! 혹시... "엘 그란데 살사리아"? |
| Man: Huh? By any chance...El Grande Salsaria? |
| 혜진: 응. 어떻게 알았어? |
| Hyejin: Yeah. How did you know? |
| 아저씨: (주먹을 올리고..) 아!!! "엘 그란데 살사리아!!!!!! |
| Man: (raising a fist) AHH!!! El Grande Salsaria!!!!! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Keith: What’s wrong with El Grande Salsaria? |
| Hyunwoo: The name is wrong. |
| Seol: Yes and that made Hyejin’s mom sick. |
| Keith: In Spanish, this is El Grande Salsaria, the big Salsaria. I think it is like salsa I guess. |
| Seol: The sauce, the salsa sauce? |
| Keith: How do we say that in Korean? |
| Seol: 살사 소스 |
| Keith: Yeah so what’s wrong with that? |
| Seol: Sound salsa itself is a little bit weird in Korean. |
| Hyunwoo: It sounds like a different word that means |
| Seol: Diarrhea 설사 |
| Hyunwoo: Yeah. |
| Keith: How do we say that word? |
| Seol: 설사 |
| Keith: And what’s salsa? |
| Seol: 살사 |
| Hyunwoo: Wow! Almost exactly the same. |
| Keith: Can we have those two side by side? Salsa sauce. |
| Seol: 살사 |
| Keith: And the bathroom thing that we… |
| Seol: Okay, okay. 설사 |
| Keith: So remember, please be careful. I once had a friend that went to Korea and he was looking for salsa but they went to a supermarket and he kept saying, do you have any salsa. It was just like confusing situation. Okay let’s leave it at that. Let’s move on to our vocabulary. What’s the first word we have? |
| Hyunwoo: 괜찮다 |
| Keith: To be okay, to be all right. |
| Hyunwoo: 괜찮다 [slowly - broken down by syllable] 괜찮다 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Next we have |
| Hyunwoo: 아프다 |
| Keith: To be hurt, to be sick. |
| Hyunwoo: 아프다 [slowly - broken down by syllable] 아프다 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Next. |
| Hyunwoo: 배 |
| Keith: Stomach, belly. |
| Hyunwoo: 배 [slowly - broken down by syllable] 배 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Next is |
| Hyunwoo: 어머니 |
| Keith: Mother. |
| Hyunwoo: 어머니 [slowly - broken down by syllable] 어머니 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Next we have |
| Hyunwoo: 어떻게 |
| Keith: How. |
| Hyunwoo: 어떻게 [slowly - broken down by syllable] 어떻게 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: After that |
| Hyunwoo: 우리 |
| Keith: We, us, our |
| Hyunwoo: 우리 [slowly - broken down by syllable] 우리 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Next |
| Hyunwoo: 동네 |
| Keith: Neighborhood. |
| Hyunwoo: 동네 [slowly - broken down by syllable] 동네 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: After that |
| Hyunwoo: 멕시코 |
| Keith: Mexico. |
| Hyunwoo: 멕시코 [slowly - broken down by syllable] 멕시코 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: And next is |
| Hyunwoo: 식당 |
| Keith: Restaurant. |
| Hyunwoo: 식당 [slowly - broken down by syllable] 식당 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Next is |
| Hyunwoo: 요리 |
| Keith: Food, cuisine. |
| Hyunwoo: 요리 [slowly - broken down by syllable] 요리 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: And now we have |
| Hyunwoo: 혹시 |
| Keith: By any chance, perhaps. |
| Hyunwoo: 혹시 [slowly - broken down by syllable] 혹시 [natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Keith: All right. Let’s take a look at some of these words in a little more detail. What’s our first word we have? |
| Seol: 아프다 |
| Keith: To be hurt, to be sick. Now Koreans use this word to ask, are you sick but literally it’s hurt right? |
| Hyunwoo: Umm something like does it hurt? Is it aching but 한국어에서는 아프다 it means are you sick? |
| Keith: So how do you ask, are you sick? |
| Seol: 어디 아파요? |
| Keith: And that’s really interesting because you say 어디 where sick, where hurt. |
| Seol: What part of body are you sick? but… |
| Keith: It doesn’t make much sense. |
| Seol: No. |
| Keith: So remember to use this as a phrase. This is, Are you sick pretty much? And one more thing we should go over is the conjugation of this. This has an irregular conjugation. Now what’s the verb we have? |
| Hyunwoo: 아프다 |
| Keith: And the verb stem is |
| Hyunwoo: 아프 |
| Keith: That last syllable 프 ends in the ㅡ vowel. So when we have that, we remove that vowel and now that’s the real verb stem. That’s how we really conjugate it. So you take out that last vowel. So what do we have? |
| Hyunwoo: 아ㅍ |
| Keith: Right because there is no vowel. That consonant ㅍ is floating in the air. It’s kind of on its own. Every syllable needs a consonant and a vowel but since we don’t have a vowel, that ㅍ is standalone. So when we add the ㅏ/ㅓ/ㅕ conjugation to it, what do we use? |
| Hyunwoo: ㅏ |
| Keith: And why is that? |
| Seol: Because the closest vowel is ㅏ |
| Keith: Right and that’s in the first syllable. 아 |
| Hyunwoo: ㅍ |
| Keith: And then we add another ㅏ over there because of that last vowel ㅏ. So now we have |
| Hyunwoo: 아파 |
| Keith: And if you want to be polite. |
| Hyunwoo: 아파요 |
| Keith: So this happens with a lot of verbs when their verb stems end in that vowel ㅡ. All right, let’s move on. What’s our next word? |
| Seol: 우리 |
| Keith: We, us, our. Now this is used very, very frequently by Koreans. |
| Seol: Yeah. |
| Hyunwoo: Yeah. It’s used even when it’s supposed to mean my. |
| Seol: Yeah. So when I introduce my mother to other people. I say 우리 엄마 instead of my mom, I say our mom. |
| Keith: And why is that? |
| Seol: I don’t know because I share my mom with my sisters. |
| Keith: But even if you didn’t have any sisters, even if you are an only child, you would still say 우리 엄마. |
| Seol: Right, right, right, you are right. |
| Keith: And that’s because it’s part of the family. |
| Seol: Ah… |
| Hyunwoo: Umm. |
| Seol: So we are all in the same family and we are sharing our family members, that’s why? |
| Keith: We are sharing our family members, we are sharing our role in the family and that’s a huge part of Korean culture, the group centered mentality. It’s not my school because that’s being kind of selfish. |
| Seol: Right, so... |
| Keith: It’s our school. |
| Seol: 우리 학교 |
| Hyunwoo: But what’s interesting here is, I have never said 우리 방 in my whole life. I always said 내 방 but 우리 집. |
| Keith: Let’s go over that word. |
| Hyunwoo: 우리 방 means our room, but I usually say my room 내 방 even in Korea. |
| Keith: You are not sharing it with anybody. |
| Hyunwoo: No, and since the house is something that you share with other family members, you always have to say 우리 집. |
| Seol: Yeah it’s not my house. It’s my family’s house and my room is my room. |
| Hyunwoo: Even my father’s car can be called 우리 차 or 우리 자동차. |
| Keith: Lucky you. We all share everything. So even with us, what do we say? |
| Hyunwoo: 우리 사무실 |
| Keith: Our office. |
| Hyunwoo: 우리 회사 |
| Keith: Our company, instead of my company. |
| Hyunwoo: Umm I would say 우리 회사 even to my friends who are not actually a member of our company. |
| Keith: That’s because you are sharing that group mentality. You are still in that group. It’s our company even if you are talking to other people about it, it’s our company. I am working with other people. I am in this group with other people. So it’s our company, not my company. How did 우리 come out in today’s conversation? |
| Seol: 우리 동네 |
| Keith: Our neighborhood. So who is she sharing that neighborhood with? |
| Seol: The neighboring people. |
| Keith: The neighborhood. So she doesn’t say my neighborhood, our neighborhood. All right, that was pretty good. Okay, well let’s move on. What’s our next word? |
| Seol: 요리 |
| Keith: Food, cuisine. Now I really like this word because it’s so simple. |
| Seol: 요리? |
| Keith: Yeah and it’s a noun but you can make it into a verb. |
| Hyunwoo: 요리하다 |
| Keith: To cook, to make food and we can also add another noun in front. |
| Seol: 중국 요리 |
| Keith: Chinese food, Chinese cuisine. |
| Seol: 멕시코 요리 |
| Keith: Mexican food, Mexican cuisine. If you know the name of the country and then you just add 요리 at the end, it means that country’s food. One big question I have is 미국 요리 What is 미국 요리 to you, American food? |
| Seol: Do we really have 미국 요리? Well hamburger comes up in my mind. |
| Keith: American food but you never really say 미국 요리, right? |
| Seol: No, no. |
| Keith: Yeah even when I was living in America, I would ask my friends, you know, what do you guys eat? You know, I am Korean. In my house, we eat 우리 집, we eat Korean food 한국 요리. I ask them and you know, they are not Korean. They are not from anywhere else. Their family has been in America for so many generations and I say, you know, what do you eat 뭐 먹어요? and I don’t know. They can’t give me an answer. |
| Hyunwoo: 왜 그럴까요? |
| Seol: There might be no original 미국 요리. That’s why I guess. |
| Keith: Hamburgers and Buffalo wings. Some of our listeners can shed some light on this. What do you eat at home? It’s a big question that I have. |
| Seol: I actually asked the same question to Marquee who is from JapanesePod101.com and he is from New York and he said, he eats salad, some birds, and some meat and sometimes steak. That’s what he said. |
| Keith: Yeah I think that’s the general answer. My friends would always say I don’t know, some meat, vegetables and bread. Alright, let’s move on to today’s grammar point. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Keith: We only have one grammar point today, but today, it's a real doozy. |
| Seol: 화이팅! |
| Keith: So what are we talking about? |
| Seol: You're the talking about the honorific infix. |
| Hyunwoo: 시 |
| Keith: I think it's very advanced, almost. |
| Seol: Very, very advanced. |
| Keith: But it's so common in Korean language. Wherever you go, wherever you meet people. If you're speaking Korean, you're going to be using this honorific infix all the time. So even though it's a little advanced, since you hear it so often, we want to introduce it to you. So this honorific infix is used in conjunction with verbs — descriptive verbs, action verbs, any verbs. It's used when you want to honor the topic of the sentence. So it's not necessarily the person you're talking to. If you're talking to, let's say in this conversation, they're talking in the intimate politeness level. They're very close, but suddenly he brings up her mother, who he respects. Because her mother has now entered the conversation, he is using the honorific infix to honor her mother. Now, the difference between this honorific infix and politeness level is what? |
| Seol: The politeness level is about the person who you're talking to and who you're talking with, but the honorific infix is about who you're talking about. |
| Keith: So even if you're using standard politeness level. So if you're talking with a stranger, you want to honor that stranger because you want to be polite. So you're using standard politeness level or formal politeness level, and you're using the honorific infix. But in today's conversation, we wanted to introduce the conversation as intimate politeness level with the honorific infix to show the contrast. So as we said, in line 1 아저씨 brings up her mother. |
| Hyunwoo: 어머니는 괜찮으셔? |
| Keith: Let's break that down really quick. |
| Hyunwoo: 어머니 |
| Keith: Mother. |
| Hyunwoo: 는 |
| Keith: Topic marking particle. Even though he's talking with Haejin now, he brings up her mother, so the topic of the sentence is her mother now. |
| Hyunwoo: 괜찮으셔 |
| Keith: And what is that? |
| Hyunwoo: It's basically 괜찮다 with the honorific infix, 시. So it's 괜찮으셔 now. |
| Keith: Whoa. There's a lot of conjugation going on in there. Ok. So let's go into the conjugation of this. What's the verb "to be all right"? |
| Hyunwoo: 괜찮다 |
| Keith: And the verb stem is? |
| Hyunwoo: 괜찮 |
| Keith: If you wanted to conjugate this in the intimate politeness level without the honorific infix? |
| Hyunwoo: It's 괜찮아. |
| Keith: But this is the honorific infix, so it's going to squeeze its way in between the two. The verb stem and the conjugation. So what's the verb stem? |
| Hyunwoo: 괜찮 |
| Keith: And now we add the honorific infix. |
| Hyunwoo: 시 |
| Keith: But here, because 괜찮 ends in a consonant, 받침이 있으니까, we add... |
| Hyunwoo: 으시 |
| Keith: And 받침이 없을 때, when it doesn't end in a consonant? |
| Hyunwoo: 시 |
| Keith: So, in this case it ends in a consonant so we're adding 으시. So what do we have so far? |
| Hyunwoo: 괜찮으시 |
| Keith: Now we add on the conjugation to the end of that. So here, what's that last syllable that we have? |
| Hyunwoo: 시 |
| Keith: From the 아/어/여 conjugations, since we're using the intimate politeness level, which one do we choose? |
| Hyunwoo: 어 |
| Keith: Because it ends in 시, that last vowel. So what do we have? |
| Hyunwoo: 괜찮으시어 |
| Keith: That 시어, that last two syllables, they contract into one. If you check out today's PDF, we have a contraction table for you to look at. So what do we have now? The final product. |
| Hyunwoo: 괜찮으셔 |
| Keith: "Is she alright?" (honorific). How do we say, "Is she alright?" without the honorifics? |
| Hyunwoo: 괜찮아 |
| Keith: But, what's the difference? |
| Seol: If 아저씨 says 괜찮아 about her mother, I just feel like they're really close. I mean, he and her mother. But here he's respectful about her mother so he says 괜찮으셔. I can feel that he's very polite. |
| Keith: So he's being polite to her mother, even though she's not here. She's not there physically, but since they're talking about her, he still wants to be polite to her. So he's using the honorific infix. Today's conversation is filled with this honorific infix. It's all in the intimate politeness level, which we covered in our last lesson, but now we have the honorific infix. So there's some changes in the end. Let's go over a couple examples of today's conversation. In line number three we have? |
| Hyunwoo: 왜? 아프셔? |
| Keith: 아프다, to be hurt. What's 아프다 in the intimate politeness level without the honorific? |
| Seol: 아파 |
| Keith: If you want to be respectful to her mother? |
| Hyunwoo: 아프셔 |
| Keith: One thing I find interesting is that he's using the honorific infix to her mother, but she's not using the honorific infix towards her mother. |
| Hyunwoo: She's a kid. |
| Seol: Yeah. She's a kid and she doesn't feel that she should be respectful to her mother. |
| Keith: So, when you're talking about your parents, do you use the honorific infix? |
| Hyunwoo: Basically, when I'm talking about my parents to somebody outside my family, I would always use 시 to stay respectful to my parents. |
| Seol: Yeah. Me, too. After I felt that I'm a grownup and I'm not a kid any more, then I started to use the honorific infix when I say about my mom and my father. |
| Keith: I guess I’m still a kid because I don’t use it that much. |
| Seol: But when a non-native Korean speaker uses this honorific infix appropriately, then I feel that he is very good at speaking Korean. |
| Keith: So if you want to impress Seol, use this honorific infix. |
| Seol: 설 예쁘셔. Sorry. |
| Keith: So remember, intimate politeness level, standard politeness level, formal politeness level is for whom you are talking with physically but the honorific infix is used for the topic of the conversation. Okay so how do you feel about that grammar point? |
| Hyunwoo: 아주 좋으셨어요. |
| Seol: No in that case 아주 좋았어요. |
| Keith: Yeah that’s wrong right? |
| Keith: Why is that wrong? You just said, can we have that again? |
| Hyunwoo: 좋으셨어요. |
| Keith: And what’s the verb there? |
| Hyunwoo: 좋다 |
| Keith: To be good. Now 좋으셨어요 that’s good with the honorific. Why is that wrong? |
| Keith: Because if I say 좋으셨어요 about our lesson, it means I am respecting the lesson like as if it were a person. So that’s funny. |
| Keith: So it should only be used with people. |
| Seol: Uh-huh. |
| Keith: Or groups of people also. |
| Keith: Exactly. |
| Keith: Okay. So that was good. |
| Seol: 좋았어요. |
| Keith: Not 좋으셨어요? |
| Seol: No not 좋으셨어요. 좋았어요. |
| Keith: 좋았어요. |
Outro |
| Keith: All right. So that’s going to do it and remember to stop by and say 설, 예쁘셔요. |
| Seol: Great, great. |
| Keith: Alright see you. |
| Seol: Bye. |
| Hyunwoo: 안녕히 계세요. |
Easily master this lesson’s grammar points with in-depth explanations and examples. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Comments
Hide