"I like to VERB."? for instance:
I like to read books. I like to eat spicy food. I like to sleep late. ?
(뭣뭣)을/를 "좋아" {합니다} - (something) "like" {to do}
I like to read books.
literally: 저는 책을 읽는 것을 좋아합니다 but this sentence is a bit awkward, the more common way to express this as follows:
독서를 좋아합니다 -reading like doing = I like reading.
독서를 좋아해요
독서를 좋아해
I like to eat spicy food.
lit: 저는 매운 음식을 먹는 것을 좋아합니다 - once again a bit awkward, more commonly:
매운 음식을 좋아합니다 - I like spicy food.
or 매은 것을 좋아합니다 - I like spicy stuff.
I like to sleep late.
늦잠을 자는 것을 좋아합니다
Also, how can I very delicately say that I don't like something. Sometimes even "not good" seems too strong. Is there a way to say "For me, it's not so good." or "For me, the food was not delicious, the movie was not interesting..." (This would just be with friends. In more formal situations, I would probably just say something was good or okay.)
This is a bit more difficult because your question also touches upon nuance and verb tense. But basically if you don't like something, using the examples above you can simply reverse the meaning:
~을/를 "좋아하지 않습니다 - (something) liking it is not
I don't like to read books.
literally: 저는 책을 읽는 것을 좋하지 않습니다
more commonly:
독서를 좋아하지 않습니다
읽는 것를 좋아하지 않아요
to soften or de-emphasize try adding '별로' (not very)
읽는 것을 별로 좋아하지 않아요 -I don't like reading very much.
I don't like (to eat) spicy food.
매운 음식을 좋아하지 않아요
or you can substitute 싫어(dislike/hate) for 좋아(like), as in
매운 음식을 싫어합니다 /싫어요 - I dislike spicy food.. I hate spicy food.
As for saying you didn't enjoy a movie or something already past then you would change the verb tense to something like ~을 좋아하지 않
았습니다 or ~을 싫어
했습니다.
Some alternatives:
그 영화는 별로였어요 - The movie was not very good. =I didn't enjoy it.
그 음식은 별로였다 - The food was not that good.
As a student of language I'm sure you are already aware of this, but the things we understand in our native language do not always cross directly over into another language. We want to express our thoughts but our mind and thought process is typically conformed to our mother tongue, therefore it is often awkward to attempt to apply the conventions of one language to another.
For example, in English we can universally use the term "good' to describe the attributes of many things, a good car, good food, a good person, a good movie, a good time, etc. We can do this in Korean too, but it sounds a bit awkward because Korean tends to be much more specific i.e. a quality car, delicious food, a sincere person, a fun/interesting movie, an enjoyable time.
I hope my modest effort here has helped.
Keep up the great work!
George
