Help with sentences. Very new to Hangeul.

[joshuanadon3960]

안녕하세요, 나 조아하다 당신의 신발/ Annyeonghaseyo, na joahhada dangshineui shinbal. / Hello, I like your shoes.

나의 이름 은 조슈아/ Naeui ileum eun Josyua./ My name is Joshua

I've come to understand a bit of the characters themselves ( The sounds they make and such ), but I'm not very good at the word themselves, along with the etiquette. Could you tell me all I did right, and all I did wrong?

[madisonk6013]

안녕하세요, 나 조아하다 당신의 신발/ Annyeonghaseyo, na joahhada dangshineui shinbal. / Hello, I like your shoes.

나의 이름 은 조슈아/ Naeui ileum eun Josyua./ My name is Joshua

I've come to understand a bit of the characters themselves ( The sounds they make and such ), but I'm not very good at the word themselves, along with the etiquette. Could you tell me all I did right, and all I did wrong?

Hi Josh,


This is Madison from Koreanclass101.com!

You have all correct words for Koreans but there is few that are missing!

The biggest difference between English and Korean is we use verb at the last moment. While English is Subject Verb then Object or so, Korean is Subject Object then Verb.

So for your first sentence which is I Like Your Shoes, it would be 나는 당신의 신발을 조아하다. would be better way to say!

For second one , it is perfect but if you would like to make it formal, it would be 나의 이름은 조슈아 입니다. Which 입니다 is verb for formal version.

Hope this helped and let us know any time if you have any questions!

But you're doing great job!


Thank you,

Madison, Koreanclass101.com

[trutherous]

조아하다 "좋아하다" 아닐까요?

[trutherous]

Hi Joshua,

Welcome to KC101. It's always nice to see another student of Korean. I hope you will make liberal use of the forums here.

I was looking at one of your sentences

나의 이름 은 조슈아/ Naeui ileum eun Josyua./ My name is Joshua

and thought I would give you a tip. Of course Madison 선생님 (teacher) taught you the correct way to say this "나의 이름은 조슈아입니다" but I saw something in your example sentence that a native speaker might miss, and that is your use of "은." By the way you spaced "은" off from "이름" it looks like you assumed that "은" meant "is"; however, it does not. Put the simplest way, in this case "은" is a subject marker (particle) that is directly attached to '이름" so that "name" gets marked as the subject of this sentence. The use of "particles" in Korean can be very confusing to new students of the language, so I suggest you just learn them little by little as you learn the expressions you want to use.

Breaking it down:
나(Na= "I" e.g. self)의(eui= makes noun/pronoun possessive) 이름(ireum= name)은(eun= marks myname as subject) 조슈아(I think you know your name)입니다(immnida= is/it is), so if we attempt a totally literal translation it comes out sounding like Yoda on Star Wars "My name Joshua it is." Although we could also literally translate it "My name-is Joshua it is" this would give the misconception that "은" can be accurately translated as "is."

Finally, Joshua, I applaud your effort. I can see that you are really trying hard. And while I am not a big fan of grammar, I do see the need for some basic understanding of it when studying a foreign language. Try to keep in mind that the structure of Korean is S-O-V (Subject-Object-Verb), this is the way Koreans think, so if you want to be proficient in the language you have got to think the same way, you can't simply take an English thought that is based on SVO and translate it directly across.

Simple examples:

S-O-V (Korean) 나는 당신을 사랑해요 (naneun dangshineul sarangheyo) - Lit: I you love do
S-V-O (English) I love you -Lit: 나는 사랑해 당신을 <- understandable but wrong in Korean

breaking it down further:
나(I)는(subject marker) 당신(you)을(object marker) 사랑(love verb stem)해요(doing -verb)

See, now you have learned the basic structure of Korean and you have learned subject and object markers.

You're off to a great start! Keep up the good work!

George - fellow student

[trutherous]

Nice to meet you Madison.

[joshuanadon3960]

감사합니다 ! Thank you! You've helped me quite a bit. I actually never knew SOV, which is why my grammar is horrendous. I'm glad you pointed that out, because I as well am quite an obsessive of grammar.

[jaehwi]

Hi Joshua & George,


YES it is actually 좋아하다! Oh boy, too focused on grammar whoa!

Hope it didn't confuse Joshua and thank you for the comments to George Smile

As George has mentioned, there are some things that native could easily miss since you naturally pick up the words instead of learning one-by-one.

Let's all study hard! X)


Thank you,

Madison, Koreanclass101.com