Learn about understanding the topic particle and subject particle
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Seol: 안녕하세요. 윤설입니다. |
| Keith: Keith here! Particle Mania. Seol, do you like the title? |
| Seol: I love the title. |
| Keith: Yeah? |
| Seol: Yeah. |
| Keith: You love particles? |
| Seol: No, but…no. |
| Keith: But that’s what today’s lesson is all about, particles. |
| Seol: Yeah. But we have to know what these particles are used for. |
| Keith: But you still don’t like them? |
| Seol: I’m trying to love them! |
| Keith: Well, hopefully our listeners out there are going to, at least, like them. |
| Seol: Yeah. |
| Keith: Okay. So Seol, can you introduce the conversation for us? |
| Seol: There is one man and one woman and I think it’s their first meeting. |
| Keith: What kind of meeting do you think it is? |
| Seol: 소개팅. |
| Keith: Seol, can you break down that word for us? |
| Seol: 소-개-팅. |
| Keith: And what’s that exactly? |
| Seol: Blind date. |
| Keith: Yeah. Well, a lot of Koreans like 소개팅, right? |
| Seol: I love it, too! |
| Keith: You love it too? |
| Seol: Yeah. |
| Keith: You said you only went on one blind date, though. |
| Seol: I’m trying to love it because now I’m searching for a new boyfriend so I need it. |
| Keith: So, yeah, a lot of Koreans, like Seol, go on blind dates or at least they tried to go on blind dates. How do people actually go about finding blind dates? |
| Seol: Maybe they ask their friends for introducing a really good person. |
| Keith: So do you have 소개팅 for me? |
| Seol: I’ll think about it. |
| Keith: Think about it, okay. Well, hopefully Seol will get me a blind date. I’m okay with it. I’m good with it. I’m open. |
| Seol: So can I expect my blind date too? |
| Keith: Only if you get me blind date. |
| Seol: Okay. |
| Keith: All right. All right. So hopefully we’ll have some more luck. But these two people, they already got their blind dates, so why don’t we take a look? |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| 호진 음…. 음… 아! 저는 학생입니다. |
| 요이치 학생입니까? 저는 선생님입니다. 음… 음… 아! 한국 사람입니까? |
| 호진 아니오. 저는 한국 사람이 아닙니다. 저는 중국 사람입니다. |
| 요이치 아! 중국 사람입니까? 저는 중국 친구가 있습니다. |
| 호진 중국 친구가 있습니까? 저는 중국 친구가 없습니다. |
| 요이치 없습니까? |
| Seol: 한 번 더 천천히. |
| 호진 음…. 음… 아! 저는 학생입니다. |
| 요이치 학생입니까? 저는 선생님입니다. 음… 음… 아! 한국 사람입니까? |
| 호진 아니오. 저는 한국 사람이 아닙니다. 저는 중국 사람입니다. |
| 요이치 아! 중국 사람입니까? 저는 중국 친구가 있습니다. |
| 호진 중국 친구가 있습니까? 저는 중국 친구가 없습니다. |
| 요이치 없습니까? |
| Seol: 영어로 한 번 더 |
| 호진 음…. 음… 아! 저는 학생입니다. |
| Keith: Umm...umm...oh! I'm a student |
| 요이치 학생입니까? 저는 선생님입니다. |
| Keith: You're a student? I'm a teacher. |
| 음… 음… 아! 한국 사람입니까? |
| Keith: Umm... umm... oh! Are you Korean? |
| 호진 아니오. 저는 한국 사람이 아닙니다. 저는 중국 사람입니다. |
| Keith: No. I'm not Korean. I'm Chinese. |
| 요이치 아! 중국 사람입니까? 저는 중국 친구가 있습니다. |
| Keith: Oh! You're Chinese? I have a Chinese friend. |
| 호진 중국 친구가 있습니까? 저는 중국 친구가 없습니다. |
| Keith: You have a Chinese friend? I don't have any Chinese friends. |
| 요이치 없습니까? |
| Keith: You don't? |
Lesson focus |
| Keith: All right. Seol, what did you think of the conversation? |
| Seol: The atmosphere around them must be really awkward. |
| Keith: Yeah, it sounded very, very tense. |
| Seol: Yeah. |
| Keith: Yeah. Well, is that the type of blind date that you want? |
| Seol: Not really. I want something exciting, not like this one. |
| Keith: Well, these people are helping us out with our conversation. We’re sorry they had to experience such as weird and awkward blind date, and that we hope that Seol won’t get that experience. Now, there’s no vocab today. And why is that? |
| Seol: Because we’ve already covered all these vocabulary. |
| Keith: That’s right. So this is basically a review, except we’re going to go in more detail with the particles, specifically the topic marking particle and the subject marking particle. And to do this, we have to look at it from context. So let’s start off by going into the conversation. In the first line, we have… |
| Seol: 음… 아! |
| Keith: This is not standard vocabulary, it’s just sounds that Koreans make. And 음 is… |
| Seol: Like English um, right? |
| Keith: English? I think we use hmm. |
| Seol: Yeah. Right, right. |
| Keith: In Korean it’s 음.. |
| Seol: But it’s similar to English hmm. |
| Keith: Yeah, very similar. Just when you’re thinking, like, “What can I say? What can I say?” And then, ah! Now, what’s that? |
| Seol: Something comes to mind. |
| Keith: Yeah, just “Hmm, what can I say?” And “Ah, I got it.” |
| Seol: Yeah. |
| Keith: Yeah. This happened to you, hasn’t it? |
| Seol: Sometimes. |
| Keith: On a blind date? |
| Seol: Yeah, because it’s really awkward. It’s my first time to meet him and, like, there is no common topics that we can share. |
| Keith: Yeah. So you use a lot of “hmmm, ah!” |
| Seol: Yeah! |
| Keith: Yeah. I’ve done it before, too. Well, not on blind dates. I actually never went on a blind date. But, yeah, I’m just not very good with girls. I’m very awkward anyway. |
| Seol: This is all lie. |
| Keith: Why? I’m serious. I use “hmmm, ah!” a lot. I do! |
| Seol: Maybe that’s the pick-up line you use. |
| Keith: No, not at all. Trust me on this. All right. So next, let’s move on to the next line. |
| Seol: 저는 학생입니다. |
| Keith: This should sound very familiar. Let’s break it down real quick. |
| Seol: 저 |
| Keith: “I” followed by… |
| Seol: 는 |
| Keith: The topic marking particle… |
| Seol: 학생 |
| Keith: “Student.” |
| Seol: 입니다. |
| Keith: “Am.” “I am a student.” So we’re going to take a look at this topic marking particle 는. All right. So we have two topic marking particles, correct? |
| Seol: Yes. |
| Keith: What are the two? |
| Seol: 은 and 는. |
| Keith: Yeah. Here, we used 는. Why is that? |
| Seol: Because the last syllable before 는 ends with the vowel. |
| Keith: So any time you want to add the topic marking particle 은 or 는, you have to look at what you’re attaching it to, take the last syllable, and see if it ends in a consonant or a vowel. Seol, can you give us one of your best friend’s names? |
| Seol: 수진. |
| Keith:수진. And if we want to add the topic marking particle, we add… |
| Seol: 은 |
| Keith: Because 수/진 ends in a consonant, that ㄴ. That sound is a consonant. So we add 은. All right. Can you give us another one of your friend’s names? |
| Seol: 키스. |
| Keith: Yes. Once again, we have my name. It’s like kind of like Kiss 키스, 키스는. And the 키스 ends in a vowel. So here we add sms all right? But these two things, they do exactly the same thing. They act exactly the same ways and accomplish exactly the same things. It’s just…why do they change? |
| Seol: To make the pronunciation easier. |
| Keith: Korean tends to make it vowel-consonant, vowel-consonant, vowel-consonant. Try to make it as alternating as possible. All right. Here in this sentence, we have 저는 학생입니다. “I student am.” “I am a student.” |
| Now here, here she is using 는. because the conversation can go any way. They’re evidently not talking about anything. Because the conversation can sway this way or that way, she is using the topic marking particle to set the topic of conversation. All right, the next line we have is 학생입니까? “Student is?” “You’re a student?” And now, what do we have after that, Seol? |
| Seol: 저는 선생님입니다. |
| Keith: “I teacher am.” “I am a teacher.” Here he’s using 는 to bring the topic of conversation back to him. First, the topic of conversation was her, and now he wants to bring the topic of conversation back to him. He basically wants to reset the conversation. All right, that’s going to do it for 은 and 는 today, but you should know that 은 and 는 has so many different usages and this is one of the usages. What we have so far in today’s conversation is to sway the focus of conversation in one direction the way you want it to sway. All right. So we have “I am a student.” “Student? I’m a teacher.” It seems like they have something to talk about, right? |
| Seol: They finally found something. |
| Keith: Yeah. But I mean right after, it’s like, again it’s “umm, ah!” |
| Seol: Yeah. |
| Keith: This guy has to work on the social skills. |
| Seol: Yes. |
| Keith: All right. So here once again, we have “음.. 아! |
| Seol: 아! |
| Keith: Once again, he’s thinking and something comes to mind. “아! 한국사람입니까?” “Are you Korean?” And she replies… |
| Seol: 아니요. |
| Keith: “No”, followed by… |
| Seol: 저는 한국사람이 아닙니다. |
| Keith: All right. So we’re going to break it down real quick for you. |
| Seol: 저 |
| Keith: “I” followed by… |
| Seol: 는 |
| Keith: The topic marking particle. After that we have… |
| Seol: 한국 |
| Keith: “Korea”… |
| Seol: 사람 |
| Keith: “Person”… |
| Seol: 이 |
| Keith: Subject marking particle. |
| Seol: 아닙니다. |
| Keith: “Am not.” So here we have “I” followed by 는 the topic marking particle. Here, the topic marker is used for different reason than what we had in our previous examples. It’s used here because the topic is already set. He asked the question, “Are you Korean?” So now, “she” is the topic of the sentence. Now here, she’s downplaying 저 “I” because she’s already been mentioned. She’s already been set as the topic of conversation because of the last question. If the topic of the sentence has already been mentioned, then a subsequent sentence downplays the same topic. But they say the same topic again using the topic marking particle to clarify, once again, what they’re talking about. |
| Remember, in Korean, you can drop the topic of the sentence. And that’s where things can get a little confusing between speakers. One person can think they’re talking about one thing and then they’re actually talking about thing; but if you use the topic marking particle, 저는, then you definitely know what the topic of the sentence is about. So here, she’s just using it for clarification purposes. All right. And now we get to the subject marker. Seol, where is it again? |
| Seol: 한국 사람”이" |
| Keith: Yeah, we have the subject marker here. This subject marker is 이 but there’s also another one. |
| Seol: 가 |
| Keith: Right. And what’s the reason again? |
| Seol: The consonant? |
| Keith: Right, the consonants or the vowels. So here, 한국사람 ends in a consonant. So we use 이. Can you give us an example of where we use 가? |
| Seol: 친구가? |
| Keith: Friend followed by 가. 친구 ends in a vowel. So here we use ㄴ. Once again, these two do exactly the same things, accomplished the same things, but they’re just used to make the pronunciation easier. All right. So here, it’s 한국사람이 아닙니다. The reason we use the subject marking particle here is because of the verb 아니다. The subject marking particle and 아니다. it’s kind of like set. Most of the time, whenever you use 아니다, you have to have a subject marking particle to refer to what you’re not. All right, so let’s just take a real quick look at this sentence “한국사람이" Korean followed by subject marker 아닙니다. “Korean not.” That subject marker actually marks what you’re not. So 한국사람이 아닙니다. All right. So now we have… |
| Seol: 저는 중국사람입니다. |
| Keith: This just sound fairly familiar. If you don’t know the word for… |
| Seol: 중국 |
| Keith: That’s China. So 중국사람 is Chinese. So “I’m Chinese.” So next we have… |
| Seol: 아! 중국사람입니까? |
| Keith: “Chinese are you? Are you Chinese?” And next we have… |
| Seol: 저는 중국 친구가 있습니다. |
| Keith: All right. Now the subject marking particle comes out again. So let’s break it down real quick. |
| Seol: 저 |
| Keith: “I” followed by… |
| Seol: 는 |
| Keith: The topic marking particle. Here, the topic marking particle once again is downplaying me. So it’s like “as for me.” So now we have… |
| Seol: 중국 |
| Keith: “China.” |
| Seol: 친구 |
| Keith: “Friend.” 중국친구, “China friend”. “Chinese friend” followed by the subject marking particle, we’re going to get into this in just a few seconds, followed by… |
| Seol: 있습니다. |
| Keith: “To have, to exist.” So literally it’s “I China friend exist or have.” So “I have a Chinese friend”. All right. So let’s get back to that subject marking particle. The reason we use 가 here is, once again, it’s a set with the verb that comes after it. The last set we had was subject marking particle 아니다. the verb “to not be.” And here, it’s subject marking particle… |
| Seol: 있다. |
| Keith: The verb “to exist” or in this case, “to have.” You use this subject marking particle to specify what you have or what exists. So here we have the sentence 중국친구가 있습니다. That 가 it marks what exists. So it’s 중국사람 “that is what exist.” The verb comes afterwards. So here it’s a set – subject marker, 있다. All right. We’ll move on a little more quickly. Seol, can you help us out? |
| Seol: 중국 친구가 있습니까? |
| Keith: The first part we have is… |
| Seol: 중국 |
| Keith: “China” followed by... |
| Seol: 친구 |
| Keith: “Friend” followed by… |
| Seol: 가 |
| Keith: The subject marking particle… |
| Seol: 있습니까? |
| Keith: The interrogative form of the verb 있다. “You have a Chinese friend?” And once again, the subject marking particle is used here because we want to specify what exists. The next part is… |
| Seol: 저는 중국 친구가 없습니다. |
| Keith: Okay. Here it’s very, very easy. 이, and 가 the subject marking particles are used here because of the verb… |
| Seol: 없다. |
| Keith: They’re used as a set, once again, to specify what doesn’t exist. 저는 중국 친구가 That part, 중국친구, “Chinese friend”, that’s what doesn’t exist, 없습니다. The last sentence we have is 없습니까? “You don’t have?” Men, this is a bad date, huh? |
| Seol: She’s from China and she doesn’t have any Chinese friend? |
| Keith: Hey, it happens. |
| Seol: It does? |
| Keith: Maybe she just hung out with a bunch of Koreans. |
| Seol: Yes, maybe. |
| Keith: All right. So anyway, today we just want to give you a general idea of how the topic marking particle and the subject marking particle works. In the context of this conversation, it’s used to sway the conversation whichever way. When a conversation can go in any direction, you use it to specify what you’re talking about. And it’s also used when the topic has been already set and you’re just using it for clarification purpose. And the subject marking particle that we use in the context of today’s conversation is used because of the verbs 아니다 – “to not be”, 있다 – “to exist”, and 없다 – “to not exist.” So here, the subject marking particle and those three verbs generally speaking, comes as a set. So subject marking particle 아니다, 있다, 없다 All right. How do you feel? |
| Seol: Good job. |
| Keith: Yeah? |
| Seol: Yeah. Yes, really good. |
| Keith: You sound really exhausted. |
| Seol: No, you are the one who’s exhausted. |
| Keith: Oh, I’m really hot right now. It’s steaming hot in this room. |
Outro |
| Keith: All right. I think that’s going to do it for today. See you later! |
| Seol: 안녕! |
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