Learn the Korean words that mean "hard" and "easy"
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Keith: Is Your Korean Class Easy? In this lesson, you will learn some classroom phrases. And so, this conversation takes place where? |
| Misun: In the halls of a university. |
| Keith: The conversation is between… |
| Misun: Two friends. |
| Keith: Okay, and they’ll be speaking formal Korean. |
| Misun: 존댓말. |
| Keith: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| Misun: All right. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| 예원 수업 쉬워요? |
| 제영 어려워요! |
| 예원 교수님 쉬워요? |
| 제영 어려워요! 박지성 교수님이에요. |
| 예원 축구 수업이잖아요! |
| English Host: One more time, with the English. |
| 예원 수업 쉬워요? |
| Keith: Is the class easy? |
| 제영 어려워요! |
| Keith: It's hard! |
| 예원 교수님 쉬워요? |
| Keith: Is the professor easy? |
| 제영 어려워요! 박지성 교수님이에요. |
| Keith: He's hard! He's Professor Park Jiseong. |
| 예원 축구 수업이잖아요! |
| Keith: It's a soccer class! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Misun: Keith, you know who 박지성 is right? |
| Keith: Of course! Probably Korea's most famous soccer player! |
| Misun: 맞아요. He's a player for the Manchester United! |
| Keith: Right. And for those of you that don't know, that's a famous soccer or football team in England. |
| Misun: Of course! Not in Korea, but internationally, he’s really well-known. |
| Keith: Well, exactly. Yeah. |
| Misun: Right. And back in 2002, he was a national hero for being a leader on the Korean national soccer team. |
| Keith: Yeah. Before 2002 Korea wasn't on the international radar in terms of soccer. |
| Misun: But the 2002 national team brought the team to the semi-finals. Yes! |
| Keith: Right, that was in the World Cup. And he was, of course, one of the leaders of that team. |
| Misun: And now he's playing for one of the best soccer teams in the world. |
| Keith: And this is my personal opinion, but I think because Korea is such a small country, whenever someone makes it on the international stage, be it 박지성, 비, or 김연아, or Korean people get super excited, and they become a huge icon in Korea. |
| Misun: I know. That’s why 박지성 once actually became a model. |
| Keith: Not even that good-looking, though. |
| Misun: He’s not good-looking but he’s doing a model for some kind of cosmetic stuff. |
| Keith: Okay. |
| Misun: Or I’m not quite sure. But, you know, I saw him on TV and I was like, “Wow.” But he look really awesome now. |
| Keith: Yeah. Actually, you know what, all the people that I mentioned, 박지성, 비 and also김연아 I think they’ve all done modeling at some point. |
| Misun: Right. That’s true. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Keith: All right. Well, ;let’s take a look at the vocab for this lesson. The first word is… |
| Misun: 어려워/어려워요 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Hard; difficult (root verb is 어려우다: to be difficult) |
| Misun: 어려워/어려워요 [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 어려워/어려워요 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Next is… |
| Misun: 쉬워/쉬워요 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Easy, simple (root verb is 쉽다). |
| Misun: 쉬워/쉬워요 [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 쉬워/쉬워요 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Next. |
| Misun: 수업 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Class, lesson. |
| Misun: 수업 [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 수업 [natural native speed]. |
| Keith: And finally… |
| Misun: 축구 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Soccer. |
| Misun: 축구 [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 축구 [natural native speed]. |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Keith: Okay. Well, let’s have a closer look. |
| Misun: The first word we’ll look at is 수업. |
| Keith: Classroom. And I think this might be a useful word as we're going to learn some classroom vocabulary. |
| Misun: 네 맞아요. |
| Keith: So 수업 just means class. Let's give some useful subjects to our listeners. |
| Misun: Sure! How about what everyone is learning right now? 한국어 |
| Keith: Korean. |
| Misun: So a Korean class would be 한국어 수업. |
| Keith: What about if we're learning English. What's an English class? |
| Misun: English is 영어 so it’s 영어수업. |
| Keith: Notice how all the subjects always come in front of the word 수업. |
| Misun: 네. I'll give you another class. How about science? Science is 과학 in Korean. |
| Keith: Okay, that's science. So science class would be? |
| Misun: 과학 수업. |
| Keith: And one more. What about good oldMath? |
| Misun: In Korean, that's 수학. |
| Keith: So Math class would be? |
| Misun: 수학 수업. |
| Keith: 저는 수학 수업 싫어요. I don’t like math class. |
| Misun: Oh, my god. 나도요. Me, neither. |
| Keith: It’s a bit difficult, even the older stuff. |
| Misun: Right. |
| Keith: I don’t know much is. I kind of forgot it. All right, Misun, anyway, let’s move onto our next word. |
| Misun: Sure. Our next word is 교수님. |
| Keith: Professor. |
| Misun: 네. And just like in English, it's important to make the distinction between 교수님 and 선생님. |
| Keith: Right. That’s professors like to be called professors, right? Not teachers. So what's the word for a teacher again? |
| Misun: 선생님. |
| Keith: And the word for a professor? |
| Misun: 교수님. |
| Keith: And if you notice, they both have 님 at the end. |
| Misun: 네. It's a respective way to call someone. |
| Keith: But when you're talking about a professor, should call them by their full name, as in how it came out in the dialogue? 박지성 교수님. |
| Misun: If you’re mentioned to the third person, then you definitely should say the name. But when you talk to directly to 교수님, then I wouldn’t say that way. Just say, 교수님 안녕하세요 or something like that. |
| Keith: If you’re talking to the professor, just call him “professor” but if you’re talking about the professor to someone else, you should use their name, plus “professor,” 교수님. |
| Misun: Right. |
| Keith: All right. Well, let’s move on to the focus of this lesson. |
Lesson focus |
| Keith: The focus of this lesson is saying if something is easy or hard. |
| Misun: 어려워요! |
| Keith: "It's hard!" |
| Misun: 쉬워요! |
| Keith: "It's easy". And this lesson may be useful for those currently in school. |
| Misun: 네 맞아요. Or you can even refer to this lesson, saying it was easy or hard. So the word for easy is 쉬워요. |
| Keith: This comes from the verb 쉽다 (suipda), which means "to be easy." |
| Misun: The conjugation of this verb is irregular, so at this level, I would just suggest memorizing the conjugations, okay? |
| Keith: All right. So, for example, how do we say "it's easy" in a polite way? |
| Misun: 쉬워요 |
| Keith: Okay. And that's in the standard politeness level. |
| Misun: It's polite, but very colloquial. |
| Keith: And there's also another polite version, but it's not as conversational as 쉬워요. |
| Misun: 네. That's 쉽습니다. |
| Keith: Actually, we don't recommend using this as it's too polite, and not very conversational. |
| Misun: That’s right. So instead, our listeners should say, 쉬워요. |
| Keith: What if we wanted to be a little informal? If we're talking to someone very close with us? |
| Misun: Yeah. Obviously, you just drop 요 at the end, then you can say 쉬워. |
| Keith: Exactly. Just drop that 요 at the end of 쉬워요, and you'll be informal. 쉬워. |
| Misun: And this is informal, but very colloquial, just like 쉬워요. |
| Keith: Okay, Misun, can we give some examples? |
| Misun: 네! How about 한국어가 쉬워요. |
| Keith: Korean is easy. |
| Misun: 네. Of course. The thing that's easy goes before 쉬워요. |
| Keith: So in this case, “Korean” is easy,” so it comes in front, right? |
| Misun: 네. Again, 한국어가 숴워요. |
| Keith: Korean is easy to, at least, us, but maybe some of our listeners may think it’s difficult. Misun: Do you think so..? |
| Keith: Well, just in case, what’s “difficult” if our listeners wanted to say something is difficult? |
| Misun: If it’s difficult, we say, 한국어가 어려워요! |
| Keith: “Korean is difficult.” And this is the second focus of this lesson. |
| Misun: 어려워요 comes from the verb, 어렵다. |
| Keith: And that means "to be difficult." Again, the conjugation of this verb is irregular, so again we recommend just memorizing the conjugations at this point. |
| Misun: You’re right. But don't worry, it's very similar to 쉬워요. |
| Keith: Okay. So how do we say it politely, “it's difficult.” |
| Misun: 어려워요. |
| Keith: And this is polite, but very colloquial, the standard politeness level. |
| Misun: And there's another one that's more formal. It's 어렵습니다. |
| Keith: Yeah, but again, this one is too formal, so it's not very conversational. |
| Misun: So we recommend using 어려워요. and 쉬어요. |
| Keith: And if we wanted to be informal, what can we say? |
| Misun: 어려워! |
| Keith: Right. Again, just drop 요 at the end of 어려워요 and it'll be informal. |
| Misun: So you can use that with people who are very close to you. |
| Keith: Okay. So let’s go over some examples. |
| Misun: Sure! If you're in class, you're not understanding what the teacher is teaching, you can say, 선생님... 어려워요! |
| Keith: Teacher, it's difficult! |
| Misun: Or, if you think Korean is difficult, you can say, 한국어 어려워요! |
| Keith: “Korean is difficult!” Okay, so how did it come out in this dialog? |
| Misun: First, a question was asked... 수업 쉬워요? |
| Keith: Is the class easy? |
| Misun: And the reply was... 어려워요! |
| Keith: It's hard! |
| Misun: Next, 교수님 쉬워요? |
| Keith: Is the professor easy? |
| Misun: 어려워요! 박지성 교수님이에요. |
| Keith: “He's hard! He's Professor Park Jiseong." |
| Misun: Well, that's it for this lesson. |
| Keith, what do you think? Is this lesson easy or hard? |
| Keith: Hmm... I would say 쉬워요! It’s easy. But then again, I got some experience speaking Korean. How about you, Misun? What did you think? |
| Misun: Well, to me, 너무 쉬워요. |
| Keith: Oh, you have a lot more experience than me. |
Outro |
| Keith: Okay. Well, that just about does it for this lesson. Thanks for listening! |
| Misun: 안녕히 계세요 여러분 감사합니다. |
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