Learn how to give instructions in honorific Korean to a taxi driver
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Eric: Does This Korean Taxi Driver Know Where He's Going? Eric here. |
| Suhyun: 안녕하세요. (Annyeonghaseyo.) I'm Suhyun. |
| Eric: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to give instructions to taxi drivers using honorific Korean. This conversation takes place in a taxi. |
| Suhyun: It's between Minho and a taxi driver. |
| Eric: The speakers are not familiar with each other, so they’ll be using honorific Korean. Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
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| 택시기사: 안녕하세요, 어디까지 모셔다 드릴까요? |
| 민호: 안녕하세요. 시청으로 가주세요. |
| 택시기사: 시청이요? 알겠습니다. |
| 민호: (few minutes later) 여기서 직진해서 우회전하세요. |
| 택시기사: 좌회전이요? |
| 민호: 아니요. 우회전해주세요. |
| 택시기사: 네, 여기서 세워드릴까요? |
| 민호: 네, 감사합니다. 택시요금은 현금으로 낼게요. |
| Eric: Listen to the conversation one time slowly. |
| 택시기사: 안녕하세요, 어디까지 모셔다 드릴까요? |
| 민호: 안녕하세요. 시청으로 가주세요. |
| 택시기사: 시청이요? 알겠습니다. |
| 민호: (few minutes later) 여기서 직진해서 우회전하세요. |
| 택시기사: 좌회전이요? |
| 민호: 아니요. 우회전해주세요. |
| 택시기사: 네, 여기서 세워드릴까요? |
| 민호: 네, 감사합니다. 택시요금은 현금으로 낼게요. |
| Eric: Now, listen to the conversation with the English translation. |
| Taxi Driver: Hello, where can I take you? |
| Minho: Hello. Please take me to city hall. |
| Taxi Driver: City hall? Understood. |
| Minho: (few minutes later) Go straight here and then make a right please. |
| Taxi Driver: Make a left? |
| Minho: No, take a right please. |
| Taxi Driver: Alright, shall I drop you off here? |
| Minho: Yes, thank you. I'll pay the taxi fee by cash. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Eric: If you ever find yourself in Seoul and aren’t sure how to get to the downtown area, just ask any taxi driver to take you to City hall. |
| Suhyun: Good tip, Eric. City Hall, or 시청, in Korean is a well known spot in Seoul. Any taxi driver would surely know it. |
| Eric: There are also a large number of tourist attractions located around the building, and it’s a common place to hold activities. On any given weekend, you can see traditional music performances, concerts, or even public demonstrations by the citizens in the city. |
| Suhyun: In 2012, the Korean pop singer Psy even held a free concert at 시청 (sicheong) after his song 강남스타일, “Gangnam style” gained international success. |
| Eric: Okay, now onto the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Eric: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Suhyun: 모시다 [natural native speed] |
| Eric: to take someone to a place (honorific) |
| Suhyun: 모시다 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 모시다 [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Suhyun: 시청 [natural native speed] |
| Eric: city hall |
| Suhyun: 시청 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 시청 [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Suhyun: 직진 [natural native speed] |
| Eric: to go straight, to drive straight |
| Suhyun: 직진 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 직진 [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Suhyun: 좌 [natural native speed] |
| Eric: left |
| Suhyun: 좌 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 좌 [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Suhyun: 우 [natural native speed] |
| Eric: right |
| Suhyun: 우 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 우 [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Suhyun: 회전 [natural native speed] |
| Eric: rotate, turn |
| Suhyun: 회전 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 회전 [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Suhyun: 세우다 (to stop) [natural native speed] |
| Eric: to hail, to call, to stop |
| Suhyun: 세우다 (to stop) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 세우다 (to stop) [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Suhyun: 요금 [natural native speed] |
| Eric: fee, fare, price |
| Suhyun: 요금 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 요금 [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Suhyun: 택시 [natural native speed] |
| Eric: taxi |
| Suhyun: 택시 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 택시 [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Suhyun: 내다 [natural native speed] |
| Eric: to turn in, to pay |
| Suhyun: 내다 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 내다 [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Eric: Let's take a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Suhyun: 모시다 |
| Eric: which means “to take someone to a place”. This is a very polite verb. You can use it in the sense of “to bring”, “to take” and “to invite” when speaking with a person of high status, customers, elders, or individuals with which the speaker is not familiar. For example you can say… |
| Suhyun: 방으로 모시겠습니다 |
| Eric: “I'll take you to the room.” Or you can say... |
| Suhyun: 추석때 할머니를 모시고 오겠습니다. |
| Eric: ..which means “I'll bring grandmother during Chusok.” Okay Suhyun, what's the next word? |
| Suhyun: 좌 and 우 |
| Eric: These are common words which mean “left” and “right” respectively. But Suhyun, can we use these words in expressions like “left turn” or “right turn”? |
| Suhyun: Actually yes! In these cases it’s more natural to use the Chinese-based words 좌 (jwa), “left” and 우 (u), “right”. |
| Eric: These are called “directional adverbs” which are used for discussing or providing directions. For example... |
| Suhyun: 좌회전 |
| Eric: “left turn” |
| Suhyun: 좌회전 해 주세요 |
| Eric: “Please make a left turn.” |
| Suhyun: Or you can use both 좌회전 “left turn” and 우회전 “right turn” and say 여기서 좌회전하고 그다음에 우회전해주세요. |
| Eric: “Make a left turn here and then please make a right turn.” Okay, now onto the lesson focus. |
Lesson focus |
| Eric: In this lesson we'll go over a few basic directions that you can use with a taxi driver. Suhyun, how would you say “Please go to a certain destination” in Korean? |
| Suhyun: First, name your destination and then add 가 주세요, which means “go, please”. Looking closer at this verb, we have 가 (Ga) the verb-stem of the verb meaning “to go” and 주세요 (juseyo) means “please.” So 가 주세요 means “go please.” |
| Eric: Following this pattern, how can we say “To Gangnam station, please”? |
| Suhyun: Gangnam station is 강남역 in Korean. Just add it to 가 주세요 and we will have 강남역 가 주세요 |
| Eric: Literally translated, this means “Gangnam station, go please.” But in natural English it means “Go to Gangnam station, please.” Of course, you can replace Gangnam station with any other location you want to go to. If it's a subway station, you can just say the name of a station, and then add the word for “station”, which is… |
| Suhyun: 역 |
| Eric: For example if you want to go to “Seoul station”, what could you say? |
| Suhyun: Seoul station is 서울역 (Seoul-yeok). To tell your taxi driver to go to Seoul station you can say...서울역 가 주세요. |
| Eric: What about Jamsil station? |
| Suhyun: That will be 잠실역 가 주세요 |
| Eric: After the destination's name, you can also add the particle.. |
| Suhyun: 으로 (euro) |
| Eric: which is roughly translated as “to.” |
| Suhyun: For example, you can say either 강남역 가 주세요 (gangnamyoek ga juseyo) or 강남역으로 가 주세요 (gangnamyoegeuro ga juseyo) with the particle 으로 to mean “Please go to the Gangnam station.” Both phrases have the same meaning, but if you use the particle 으로 it sounds more formal. |
| Eric: You can also use this grammar structure to say “Go straight please”. |
| Suhyun: Right. First say 쭉, which means “straight” and then add 가 주세요. 쭉 가 주세요. |
| Eric: Suhyun, can we use the same pattern to say “please turn right” ? |
| Suhyun: Of course! First, say 오른쪽 , which means “right,” or “right side.” Then add a particle -으로, which means “to”. Finally you can say 가 주세요 “go please”. Altogether you can say.. 오른쪽으로 가 주세요. |
| Eric: “Please turn right” So then what about “please turn left”? |
| Suhyun: Just replace oreun, or “right,” with oen which means “left”. Everything else stays the same. 왼쪽 is the word for “left” so you can say.. 왼쪽으로 가 주세요 |
| Eric: “Please turn left.” And finally, how could we say “Please stop here” in Korean? |
| Suhyun: This would be 여기 세워주세요. 여기 (yeogi) means “here” and 세워주세요 is the conjugated form of two verbs. The first is 세우다, which means “to stop”, and the second is 주세요, meaning “please.” 여기 세워주세요 |
| Eric: “Please stop here.” Ok, to sum up, let's give our listeners some examples with grammar topics covered in this lesson. |
| Suhyun: Sure. 사거리에서 직진하고 다음 신호등에서 우회전 해 주세요. |
| Eric: “Please go straight at the intersection and make a right at the next traffic light.” |
| Suhyun: 아저씨! 여기서 내려주세요. |
| Eric: “Excuse me Sir! Please drop me off here.” |
Outro |
| Eric: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! Bye! |
| Suhyun: 안녕히 계세요. (Annyeonghi gyeseyo.) |
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