Talk with your classmates about your hobbies. What seems to be happening in the following dialogue?

In this lesson, you will learn the familiar speech style that you can use with your friends!

존댓말 version:

-어. -자. -어라! -니? Familiar speech style 

You have learned that the sentence ending -요 shows social distance between the speaker and the listener, and expresses politeness or respect for the listener. In fact, all the verb and adjective conjugations you learned in -어/아요 forms are the -어/아 conjugation plus the -요 politeness marker. By taking the politeness marker out, you enter a realm of familiar speech. (It is also called the “plain” or “intimate” speech style.) Usually parents use this type of speech to children, and young kids (and often adults) use it with their peers and friends. Just like -어요, the -어 ending (without 요) can express general facts and habitual actions, immediate plans and current activities. It can also ask a question as well as give a command:

가: 너 지금 어디 가?                              Where are you going?

나: 집에 가.                                            I’m going home.

가: 그래? 그럼 나중에 전화해.               Is that so? Then, give me a call later.

These endings should never be used to address someone who is older than you or whom you do not know well! (But it is always safe to use these endings toward children.) You should not use the 요 ending when you use the pronoun 너.  They don’t agree in politeness.

For 네 and 아니요 in familiar speech, you can use 응/어 and 아니.

이번 주말에 사진 찍으러 공원에 갈래?  Do you want to go to a park to take pictures this weekend?

응/아니.                                                           Yes/No.

-(이)야 Familiar Speech Style “it is”       

The final bit of information that wraps up the familiar ending story is the verb BE. You have seen that the verb 이다 in –어/아 conjugation has a spelling quirk in modern Korean: 이에요 (not 이어요). There is a similar quirk in the familiar form; it is not formed by simply dropping the 요: it is not 이에. After a consonant-ending noun, it is 이야, and after a vowel-ending noun, it is 야.

가: 취미가 뭐야?                                   What is your hobby?

나: 음악감상이야.                                 My hobby is listening to music.

가: 언제 빵 구울 거야?                          When are you baking bread?

나: 내일 구울 거야.                               I will bake tomorrow.

-자 Familiar Speech Style “Let’s”   

There are other familiar endings you can use to mark invitations, commands, and questions. We will take a look at the invitation -자 here.

Invitation –자:

같이 한국 드라마 보자.                          Let’s watch a K-drama together.

외국어 배우자.                                       Let’s learn foreign languages.

The following endings are also used as familiar endings and we will learn them in second-year Korean!

반말 version:

Verb + 는

In Lesson 13, we learned how to use adjectives as noun modifiers. You can also turn verbs into noun modifiers by adding -는.

For those verbs ending in ㄹ, drop ㄹ from the stem,

-는 거 (the act of) VERB-ing; being…

Often in English and in Korean, it is handy to make a verb or adjective (or a phrase) into a noun and then use it as the subject or object of the sentence:

Swimming is fun.

Jamie getting that job is kind of weird.

It’s a good thing (that) you didn’t drop your laptop onto the street!

The fact that Mom read my cover letter makes me angry.

In English, this is done in a number of complicated ways (to VERB, VERBing, the fact that SENTENCE…, him having VERBed…), but in Korean it is rather easy and is very useful. Simply create a sentence ending with a verb in the noun-modifying form (with –는) plus the word 것 (or 거). 것 (or 거) literally means thing but is basically a placeholder here, so the whole phrase is like an English “the act of VERBing” or, “the fact that…” or, “VERBing…” phrase (sometimes called a gerund clause). The phrase sealed by 것 (or 거) can then be the subject, object or topic of the sentence, and 것 or 거 can be marked accordingly with 이/가, 을 or 은/는, etc.

-는 것 phrases have several different translations in English and MANY uses in Korean. Often, they are used with adjectives such as 좋아하다, 싫어하다, 쉽다, 어렵다, 편하다 (convenient), 불편하다 (inconvenient), etc.

만화책 보는 거 좋아해요!                      I like reading comic books.

제 취미는 노래를 부르는 거예요.          My hobby is singing songs.

그림을 그리는 건 쉬워요.                      Drawing pictures is easy.

빵을 굽는 거 별로 안 어려워요.             Baking bread is not very difficult.

것 and markers are often contracted in conversation as shown below:

것이	게	것은	건	것을	걸
수영하는 것이 어려워요	수영하는 게 어려워요	사진 찍는 것은 재미있어요.	사진 찍는 건 재미있어요.	빵 굽는 것을 배우고 싶어요.	빵 굽는 걸 배우고 싶어요.

반말 version:

-(으)ㄹ 수 있어요 means it is possible to/that… and  -(으)ㄹ 수 없어요 means it is not possible to… . While 못 해요 focuses more on the individual’s inability, -(으)ㄹ 수 있다/없다 literally addresses whether the action is possible (at all). But both are used to express a person’s abilities, especially since there is no positive counterpart to 못 하다.  Of course, you drop 으 when the verb ends in a vowel.

나는 아주 매운 음식도 먹을 수 있어요.              I can eat really spicy food.

여기서 수영할 수 없어요.                                   One/we can’t swim here.

CONJUGATION PRACTICE

Let’s try to fill in the following chart with the appropriate -(으)ㄹ 수 있다 form.

<Answer key> 먹을 수 있다, 배울 수 있다, 연습할 수 있다, 걸을 수 있다, 마실 수 있다, 쓸 수 있다, 만들 수 있다, 도울 수 있다, 부를 수 있다

Mary entered Brian’s dorm room and started a conversation with him. Listen to the conversation between Mary and Bryan and answer the questions in Korean.

Option 1

1) What was Bryan doing?

2) What is a good way to study Korean according to this conversation?

3) What did you learn from their conversation? Write down three to four sentences.

a. ________________________________________________

b. ________________________________________________

c. ________________________________________________

Option 2

1) What was Bryan doing?

2) What did you learn from their conversation? Write down two sentences.

a. ________________________________________________

b. ________________________________________________

3) What is a good way to study Korean according to this conversation?

4) What did you learn from their conversation? Write down two sentences.

a. ________________________________________________

b. ________________________________________________

캠퍼스 동아리 설명회

This week is your college extracurricular club promotion week. Please read the posts from the school website and answer the questions in English.

Summary Table

Read the two promotional descriptions and complete the summary chart in English.

Your school is hosting an extracurricular club expo next week. Talk to your friends about joining clubs in 반말. You can also ask questions about the clubs you are interested in: e.g., 자전거 동아리, 요가 동아리, 요리 동아리, 한국 문화 동아리….

(맛보기)            가: OO에 동아리 엑스포가 있어.

(맛보기)           나: 아, 그래? 난 운동 동아리에 들어가고 싶어. 운동하는 거 좋아해!

(맛보기)           가: 그래? 그럼 자전거 사랑 동아리 어때?

(맛보기)           나: 어, 자전거 사랑 동아리는 언제 만나?…..

¹ 추천: recommendation

Prepare and post a poster for your extracurricular club in Korean.

The Story of 나 and 내 (or 너 and 네)

Judging which spelling to use (나 or 내 or 네?) can be confusing. The bottom line is that 나 and 너 are base forms of the familiar pronouns “I” and “you.” They can be used in combination with almost all the markers you have learned so far (나는, 나만, 나도, 나하고, 나부터, 나까지, 나의and 너는, 너만, 너도, 너하고, 너부터, 너까지, 너의). When the possessive marker 의 is blended together with 나 and 너, you get 내 (나+의 → 내) and (너+의 → 네). 내 and 네, the possessive forms, are used far more frequently than 나의 and 너의 in spoken Korean. Note that 네 is normally pronounced [니].

One last crucial bit of information that will help you judge when to use 나 or 너 is the history of the Korean subject marker 이. Several hundred years ago, it was written with just the vowel ㅣ without the placeholder ㅇ after nouns ending in vowels. So the familiar “I” along with the subject marker would look like this: 나 ㅣ. In time, they were glued together to make 내. Years and years later, people started thinking this word was a word on its own that means “I” and that it needed a subject marker. By this time, a new subject marker 가 was being used.  Naturally, 내, in need of a subject marker, started taking the subject marker 가, which is why modern Korean now uses 내가. Can you figure out how 네가 and 제가 have come around? Any hypothesis about the history of who (누구도, 누구만, 누구하고 vs. 누가)?

Traditionally, mountain hiking, listening to music, and exercising/fitness are the top three most popular hobbies in Korea. Reading, playing games, and surfing the internet are also popular. Recently, due to the Covid-19 outbreak, people started to pick up new pastime activities that can be done by oneself while practicing social distancing. Staying home is called ‘집콕’ in Korean and people spend their time doing DIY kits, knitting, indoor gardening, and cooking to make their 집콕 life more enjoyable. Some food items became extremely popular during the quarantine time, and 달고나 커피 is an example. Here is the recipe for 달고나 커피 if you want to try!

Image Credit: Pixabay

달고나 커피 만들기

• Prepare water, sugar, and instant coffee.
• Mix the ingredients with the ratio of 1:1:1.
• Stir the mix at least 4,000 times until the mix gets fluffy.
• Add to milk and ice.
• Enjoy!