Learn about counters
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Seol: 안녕하세요. 윤설입니다. (Annyeonghaseyo. Yunseorimnida.) |
| Minkyong: 안녕하세요. 민경입니다. (Annyeonghaseyo. Mingyeongimnida.) |
| Keith: Keith here. Do You Count? Hello and welcome back to koreanclass101.com, the fastest, easiest and most fun way to learn Korean. All right, so what are we focusing on in this lesson? |
| Mingyong: The focus of this lesson is counters in Korean. So this conversation takes place at a blind date 소개팅 |
| Keith: And the conversation is between 동민 and 지수 and they are meeting for the first time and introducing themselves to each other and asking some questions. |
| Mingyong: The relationship between the speakers is formal. Therefore the speakers will be using polite language. 존댓말. |
| Keith: All right. So let’s listen to today’s conversation. |
| Mingyong: 들어볼까요? |
| DIALOGUE |
| 동민: 가족이 몇 명이세요? |
| 지수: 저희 가족은 10명이에요. |
| 동민: 네?? 10명이요? 아... 형제 자매가 많아요? |
| 지수: 음... 저희 집에는 엄마, 아빠, 언니, 여동생, 저, 그리고 또치, 아지, 바비, 밍밍, 쫑... |
| 동민: 10명이 아니고 5명이랑 개 5마리 아니에요? |
| 지수: 5마리 아니에요!!! 또치, 아지, 바비, 밍밍, 쫑, 다 우리 집 식구예요!!!! |
| 동민: 아... 네... 죄송해요... |
| Minkyong: 영어로 한번 더 |
| 동민: 가족이 몇 명이세요? |
| Keith: How many people are there in your family? |
| 지수: 저희 가족은 10명이에요. |
| Keith: My family has ten people. |
| 동민: 네?? 10명이요? 아... 형제 자매가 많아요? |
| Keith: What?? Ten people? Oh... Do you have a lot of brothers and sisters? |
| 지수: 음... 저희 집에는 엄마, 아빠, 언니, 여동생, 저, 그리고 또치, 아지, 바비, 밍밍, 쫑... |
| Keith: Well... in my family, there are my mother, my father, my older sister, my younger sister, me, and Ttochi, Aji, Babi, Mingming, and Jjong... |
| 동민: 10명이 아니고 5명이랑 개 5마리 아니에요? |
| Keith: Isn't it rather five people and five dogs, not 10 people? |
| 지수: 5마리 아니에요!!! 또치, 아지, 바비, 밍밍, 쫑, 다 우리 집 식구예요!!!! |
| Keith: They are not five dogs!!! Ttochi, Aji, Babi, Mingming, Jjong, they are all my family!!! |
| 동민: 아... 네... 죄송해요... |
| Keith: Oh... okay.... I'm sorry. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Keith: Yeah for some reason, I think Korea is more of a dog nation than a cat nation. What is that by the way? I mean cats do exist but for the most part, I think Korean people don’t have a nice image of cats. |
| Mingyong: Personally I think dogs are cuter, prettier. |
| Keith: Okay. Well let’s take a look at the vocabulary. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Keith: The first word we have is? |
| Mingyong: 몇 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: How many |
| Mingyong: 몇 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mingyong: 몇 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Next is? |
| Minkyong: 형제 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Siblings |
| Minkyong: 형제 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Minkyong: 형제 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Next we have? |
| Mingyong: 자매 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Female sibling |
| Mingyong: 자매 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mingyong: 자매 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: After that? |
| Minkyong: 집 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: House, home |
| Minkyong: 집 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Minkyong: 집 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: And next? |
| Mingyong: 할머니 |
| Keith: Grandmother. |
| Mingyong: 할머니 |
| Mingyong: [할머니 |
| Keith: 그 다음에 |
| Mingyong: 엄마 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Mom |
| Mingyong: 엄마 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mingyong: 엄마 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: And next what do we have? |
| Minkyong: 아빠 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Dad |
| Minkyong: 아빠 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Minkyong: 아빠 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: And next we have? |
| Mingyong: 언니 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Older sister (for a female) |
| Mingyong: 언니 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mingyong: 언니 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Next? |
| Minkyong: 여동생 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Female younger sibling |
| Minkyong: 여동생 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Minkyong: 여동생 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Next we have? |
| Mingyong: 그리고 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: And, also |
| Mingyong: 그리고 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mingyong: 그리고 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Finally, what do we have? |
| Minkyong: 식구 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Family members |
| Minkyong: 식구 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Minkyong: 식구 [natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Keith: All right, so why don’t we take a look at some of the vocabulary and phrases that came out in this lesson so far. So what do we have? What are we talking about first? |
| Mingyong: So what about 식구 |
| Keith: Family members. Now I like this word because of 한자. I love 한자 |
| Mingyong: Yeah the first word 식 is eating right? |
| Keith: Yeah as in |
| Mingyong: 식사 |
| Keith: Meal. |
| Mingyong: 식당 |
| Keith: Restaurant. So that 식 means eat and what’s that second part? |
| Mingyong: 구 |
| Keith: Mouth. |
| Mingyong: Yes. |
| Keith: So basically it’s eating mouth. How many eating mouths are there? So how many family members because you are going to feed everybody right? |
| Mingyong: Sure, sure. |
| Keith: So a lot of times when my family gathers and I have a big extended family. You know, my grandmother will say or my aunt will say or my 큰고모 she will say 식구들 모여 like gather all the family members and it doesn’t have to do with eating. It’s like we are taking a family picture, 식구들 모여 |
| Mingyong: Yeah and I say 저는 식구가 많아요 |
| Keith: I have a lot of family members. Is this only referring to your immediate family or also your extended family? |
| Mingyong: Your immediate family only. |
| Keith: But why does my family use 식구 |
| Mingyong: Your extended family feels like you know, you guys are also closely related. |
| Keith: I don’t know about that one. Mingyong and I were talking about the uncle that we all don’t like. Everybody has that uncle. |
| Mingyong: Yeah I have two. |
| Keith: All right. So next what are we talking about? |
| Mingyong: 형제 |
| Keith: Siblings. Now this is a very straightforward word siblings but how do you ask how many siblings do you have? How many brothers and sisters do you have? |
| Mingyong: 형제가 몇이에요? |
| Keith: And that’s very straightforward, how literally siblings how many but there is also another way to ask. |
| Mingyong: 형제가 어떻게 되세요? |
| Keith: And this one is a little more difficult to translate but loose translation is what are your siblings like? And both of these mean the same thing. So Mingyong 형제가 어떻게 되세요? |
| Mingyong: 저는 오빠가 둘 있어요. |
| Keith: I have two older brothers and seul 형제가 몇이에요? |
| Mingyong: 저는 네 자매에요. |
| Keith: We are four female siblings and that’s our next word. |
| Mingyong: 자매 |
| Keith: Female siblings. Now this word I’ve never really used in my life. |
| Mingyong: You cannot use these. |
| Keith: Can you explain to me why? I have a sister. I have a younger sister. |
| Mingyong: Only those who have older sisters and younger sisters can say this. |
| Keith: So the siblings all have to be female. |
| Mingyong: Sure so I can use this but Mingyong cannot use this. |
| Keith: And what if my family was all boys? |
| Mingyong: Then you can say 형제 |
| Keith: But that means siblings. |
| Mingyong: Yeah the representative word for sibling. |
| Keith: So it’s just the general word. We are not specifically saying just brothers? |
| Mingyong: No. |
| Keith: And what if we wanted to say we are both brothers and sisters. We have a co-ed family. |
| Mingyong: 남매 |
| Keith: Okay and how can we use that in a sentence? |
| Mingyong: 저희는 삼 남매입니다. |
| Keith: We are three brothers and sisters. How about female siblings? |
| Mingyong: 저희는 네 자매입니다. |
| Keith: We are four female siblings. Why do females get all the special treatment? |
| Mingyong: Thank you. |
| Keith: All right. Let’s move on to our grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Keith: Alright. So what are we taking a look at in this lesson? |
| Mingyong: Counters in Korean. |
| Keith: Now counters is something that exists in Korean. So when you're counting something, you need something afterwards to attach it. That something that attaches after numbers represents what it is. So in this conversation, how did it come out? |
| Minkyong: Dongmin said, 가족이 몇 명이세요? |
| Keith: How many people are there in your family? That's the key word, people. So how do we say how many? |
| Mingyong: 몇 |
| Keith: And if we wanted to say how many people? |
| Mingyong: 몇 명 |
| Keith: So people is? |
| Mingyong: 명 |
| Keith: This is solely used as a counter. 명. So in our conversation, how did Jisu answer? |
| Minkyong: 저희 가족은 열 명이에요. |
| Keith: My family has ten people. Literally, so I have ten people in my family. Now if you noticed there, what number did you use? |
| Minkyong: 열 |
| Keith: Ten and if you noticed there, we're using the native Korean numbers. So Minkyong, 가족이 몇 명이세요? |
| Minkyong: 저희 가족은 다섯 명이에요. |
| Minkyong: My family is five people or I have five people in my family. Seol, 가족이 몇 명이세요? |
| Mingyong: 저희 가족은 여섯 명이에요. |
| Keith: We have six people in our family. So if you want to say the number and then how many people, just say the number and add... |
| Mingyong: 명 |
| Keith: So this is very useful, if you want to go to a restaurant. |
| Mingyong: Yeah! So when you go to restaurant you can say 다섯 명이에요. |
| Keith: We are five people, literally. But the staff at the restaurant, they usually say... |
| Minkyong: 몇 분이세요? |
| ! That means, "How many people are you?" What happened to 명? |
| Minkyong: 명 is replaced with 분 here when you want to be polite or honorific. |
| Keith: So the staff, of course, they want to be honorific. They want to be polite to you. So if you wanted to ask, "How many people are in your family," but you wanted to be a little more polite, you want honor their family, what would you say? |
| Mingyong: 가족이 몇 분이세요? |
| Keith: How many people are in your family? So basically, 명 and 분 are interchangeable. Now, one thing I want to address really quickly is, when I go to a restaurant, and they say... |
| Mingyong: 몇 분이세요. |
| Keith: How many people in your party? Do you answer with 명 or 분? |
| Mingyong: You answer with 명. |
| Keith: Yeah. I think a lot of people get this wrong. When they hear 분, they reply back with 분. 다섯 분이에요. |
| Mingyong: No, that's not right. |
| Keith: Yeah. The reason for that is? |
| Mingyong: Then it means you're being honorific to yourself. |
| Keith: Yeah, and nobody likes braggers. |
| Mingyong: No. |
| Keith: Alright. Now we have 명] and 분, but we also had another counter. What was our other counter in this lesson? |
| Minkyong: 마리 |
| Keith: This is a counter for animals. This basically works the same as 명 and 분, except there's no honorifics. We don't really honor animals. So instead of five people, 다섯 명, how can I say five animals? |
| Mingyong: 다섯 마리 |
| Keith: This 마리, it refers to all animals. Dogs, cats... |
| Mingyong: Even fish. |
| Keith: Mice. |
| Mingyong: Yeah, and you. |
| Keith: Oh! Low blow. |
| Mingyong: Oh no. I was just kidding. |
| Keith: That was good though. That was good. Well if you're curious as to a number of names of animal names, we have a long list of animals in our Lesson Notes PDF. So remember to check out our Lesson Notes PDF if you're interested in knowing the names of certain animals. But if you said 다섯 마리, five animals, what animals are you talking about? How do you be more specific? |
| Mingyong: So you have to say the name of the animal, the number, and 마리. |
| Keith: Ok. So how do you say five dogs? |
| Mingyong: 개 다섯 마리 |
| Keith: Alright. How did it come out in this conversation? |
| Minkyong: This was really interesting to me. Like Dongmin said, 열 명이 아니고 다섯 명이랑 개 다섯 마리 아니에요? |
| Keith: Isn't it rather five people and five dogs, not ten people? |
| Minkyong: And Jisu said, 다섯 마리 아니에요. |
| Keith: They’re not five dogs! What's the nuance behind this? |
| Mingyong: She consider dogs as human beings, right? |
| Keith: So she wants to say, 다섯 명이에요. |
| Mingyong: Yeah. For her, they are all family members. |
Outro |
| Keith: All right, so that just about does it for today. Thanks for listening. See you later. |
| Mingyong: 안녕히 계세요. |
| Mingyong: Bye bye. |
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