맵다/달다 vs 매콤하다/달콤하다?

[carsont]

"맵다"와 "매콤하다"는 뜻이 어떻게 달라요? (?)

I recently posted an entry (my first) on lang-8 in which I used 달다 and 맵다 to describe food as sweet and spicy, respectively. I've also seen "달콤하다" around, notably in the title of the drama "달콤한 인생", and my dictionary gives both the same English translation. Since "달다" and "맵다" are among the precious few words I learned in classroom instead of a dictionary, I felt more confident about them and opted to use them instead of the "-콤하다" words.

In the comments, someone corrected my usage of "맵다" to "매콤하다" but left "달다" alone, so there's obviously some distinction in the meaning that isn't being captured in the dictionary definitions, and I can't figure it out just from the context of the sentences that were corrected. The sentences before and after being corrected are given below, and the complete entry is here.

Before:
그렇지만 미끄러워서 먹기가 아렵고 너무 달기 때문에 저는 이반찬을 자주 요리하지 않아요.
After:
그렇지만 미끄러워서 먹기가 어렵고 너무 달기 때문에 저는 이반찬을 자주 요리하진 않아요. (I also don't yet understand why "요리하지" was corrected to "요리하진" here)

Before:
더 바삭바삭하고 촘 매워서 맛이 있군요
After:
더 바삭바삭하고 매콤해서 맛이 있요. (I think 있요 is just a typo...?)

So, my best guess is that "매콤하다" is more subtle and "맵다" more emphatic, given that the 촘 (which I was evidently using completely incorrectly everywhere) was deleted, but I really have no idea. Can anyone help to clarify this?

[manyakumi]

"맵다"와 "매콤하다"는 뜻이 어떻게 달라요? (?)

맵다 and 달다 are neutral words.
But you could use _콤하다 form to mean their meaning positively.

In your examples,
달다 was used for meaning '너무 달다:too sweet'(negative meaning) so it had been left uncorrected.

On the other hand, 맵다 was used for meaning '매워서 맛이 있다 : to be delicious since it's little bit spicy'(positive meaning) and the corrector changed it into 매콤하다.

But it's not indispensable.

After:
그렇지만 미끄러워서 먹기가 어렵고 너무 달기 때문에 저는 이반찬을 자주 요리하진 않아요. (I also don't yet understand why "요리하지" was corrected to "요리하진" here)

Don't worry about it too much.
All the lang-8 users are not teachers.

요리하진 is a short for 요리하지는, and this '는' is used for emphasizing 'to cook'.

Before:
더 바삭바삭하고 촘 매워서 맛이 있군요
After:
더 바삭바삭하고 매콤해서 맛이 있요. (I think 있요 is just a typo...?)

Yeah. just a typo.
It is supposed to be 더 바삭바삭하고 매콤해서 맛이 있군요.