Learn 10 phrases to help you in an emergency
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| Hi, everyone! I’m Jaewhi. Welcome back to Korean Top Words. In this video, we’ll be checking out 10 phrases to help you in an emergency. Let’s begin! |
| 1. 경찰을 불러 주세요. (Gyeongchareul bulleo juseyo.) "Call the police, please." |
| So 경찰 (gyeongcha) means “policeman” and 불러 주세요 (bulleo juseyo) means “please call” so when you’re in an emergency and if you want someone to call the police over the phone or in person, you can say - 경찰을 불러 주세요. (Gyeongchareul bulleo juseyo.) "Call the police, please." |
| You can also, if you need an ambulance, you can say - 앰뷸런스를 불러 주세요. (Aembyulleonseureul bulleo juseyo.) by replacing the word 경찰 (gyeongcha) here and say - |
| 앰뷸런스를 불러 주세요. (Aembyulleonseureul bulleo juseyo.) |
| Or 구급차 불러 주세요 (gugeubcha bulleo juseyo.) which means “Call me the ambulance, please.” |
| So if you can make a call, you can call 1-1-2 to call a police or 1-1-9 to call a fire truck or ambulance. |
| 2. 열이 나나요? (Yeori nanayo?) "Do you have a fever?" |
| So here we have the word 열이 (yeor) which means “fever”. It can be any kind of heat. You can also use it to mean the heat from fire, but when you talk about your health like body condition, 열이 (yeor) can mean “fever”. So when you go to a hospital, you might hear this question in Korean and you can say 예 (ye) to mean “yes” or 아니요 (aniyo) to mean “no”. |
| 3. 여권을 잃어버렸어요. (Yeogwoneul ireobeoryeosseoyo.) "I lost my passport." |
| So 여권 (yeogwon) literally means the book for travel because 여 (yeo) is the Chinese character meaning “travel” and 권 (gwon) is kind of the counter for books so 여권 (yeogwon) means “passport”. When you lost your passport, before or after you call your embassy, you also have to report it to the police. So in that case, when you go to a police station, you can say - 여권을 잃어버렸어요. (Yeogwoneul ireobeoryeosseoyo.), 잃어버렸어요 (ireobeoryeosseoyo) or 잃어버리다 (ireobeorida) is the verb meaning “to lose”. So you can actually say you lost something using this pattern. Say - 우산을 잃어버렸어요 (Usaneul ireobeoryeosseoyo.) “I lost my umbrella.” |
| 가방을 잃어버렸어요. (Gabangeul ireobeoryeosseoyo.) “I lost my bag.” |
| 4. 뭔가 잘못 먹은 거 같아요. (Mwonga jalmot meogeun geo gatayo.) "I think I ate something bad." |
| It’s a little bit long phrase to remember, but I think this is kind of a polite way to say I ate something bad. If you don’t want to hurt anyone, I think this is the phrase that you can use at the hospital or even at a restaurant. So 뭔가 (mwonga), at the beginning of the sentence here means “something”, 잘못 (jalmot) means “wrong / wrongly” and 먹은 거 같아요 (meogeun geo gatayo) means “I think I ate something”. |
| So here, we have the word 같아요 (gatayo) which means “I think / it seems like” and it makes your sentence indirect and also polite so you’ll be able to see a lot of expressions in Korean have this kind of ending like 같아요 (gatayo) so that it doesn’t sound direct, a little bit softer and also polite. |
| 5. 의사가 필요해요. (Uisaga piryohaeyo.) "I need a doctor." |
| So when you need medical help, you can use this phrase to say “I need a doctor.” 의사가 필요해요. (Uisaga piryohaeyo.) |
| Here, 의사 (uisa) means “a doctor” and you can also put any other words too. For example, 도움 필요해요 (Doumi piryohaeyo.) which means “I need help.” |
| The particle 가 (ga) should be changed depending on the noun so if you don’t want to worry about the particle because you really need help right now, but not make any grammatical mistake, you can just skip saying particle and just say - 의사 필요해요 (Uisa piryohaeyo.) “I need a doctor”, 도움 필요해요 (Doum piryohaeyo.) “I need help.” It doesn’t sound 100% natural, but it means clear anyways. |
| 6. 호텔로 돌아가는 길을 못 찾겠어요. (Hotello doraganeun gireul mot chatgesseoyo.) "I can't find the way back to my hotel." |
| If you are looking for some guesthouse and hotels with reasonable prices, you’d be able to find many of them in the north part of Seoul, which has a longer history than the south part of Seoul. That also means that the roads are kind of smaller and not easy to find because it’s been there for 600-700 years. So in that case, I recommend you to get a name card of your hotel when you check in so that other Korean people can help you because there are a lot of guests, hotels, guest houses which are new. Korean people might not be able to find it if they just hear the name only so I think it’s better to get the name card at the check-in desk when you arrive at the hotel. |
| 7. 이 근처에 약국 있나요? (I geuncheoe yakguk innayo?) "Is there a pharmacy nearby?" |
| So we have the noun 약국 (yakguk) here. 약 (Yak) means “medicine” and 국 (guk) is something like “store” so 약국 (yakguk) means “pharmacy”. I think you’ll be able to easily find a pharmacy in Korea, but when it is on weekends, it might not be easy to find one nearby so I think before you go to a pharmacy on your map, on your smartphone, I think it’s better to call them. If they answer, that means they’re open so you can just go there or ask their frontdesk staff to call them or check it for you to see if they’re open. Because many times, half of them will be closed so I think it’s better to check it in advance. If you just need some simple medicine, I think you can also check out the convenience store nearby. I think they have some medicines there too. |
| 8. 좀 도와주실래요? (Jom dowajusillaeyo?) "Can you help me? " |
| To say “Can you help me?”, you can just say it 도와주실래요? (dowajusillaeyo), but here we have the word 좀 (jom) which means, literally, “a few” because if you use that at the beginning of your question or request, your request or question would be very polite. You don’t want to say, “Can you help me a little bit?”. By using the word 좀 (jom), you can make your request much more polite. |
| 9. 길을 잃었어요. (Gireul ireosseoyo.) "I’m lost." |
| So here we have the word 길 (gi) which means “street” so it literally means “I’m lost. What street I am?”, something like that. If you just simply say 잃었어요 (ireosseoyo) to mean “I’m lost.”, it means “I lost something.”. So if you want to say, “I am lost.”, because I don’t know where I am, make sure to say 길을 (gireul). At the beginning, you say - 길을 잃었어요. (Gireul ireosseoyo.). |
| 10. 영어 하세요? (Yeongeo haseyo?) "Do you speak English?" |
| It literally means “Do you do English”, but when you want to ask someone if someone speaks English, this 하세요 (haseyo), the verb meaning “to do”, make your question more natural. So you can say - 영어 하세요? (Yeongeo haseyo?) to mean "Do you speak English?" or if you want to ask another language, for example, 중국어 (Junggugeo) “Chinese”, you can say - |
| 중국어 하세요? (Junggugeo haseyo?) “Do you speak Chinese?”. |
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