• Talk about housing arrangements and options.
• Ask questions in a round–about way.
• Share information about any misunderstandings or incorrect assumptions.

• INGREDIENTS – 단어 Vocabulary
  • Housing arrangement
• RECIPE – 문법과 표현 Grammar
  • A–(으)가/ V–나(요)?
  • A/V–(으)ㄹ 줄 알았다/몰랐다
  • NOUN 만큼
• LET’S COOK! – 해 봐요! Classroom Tasks
  • Interpretive Task 1. At the welcome reception
  • Interpretive & Interpersonal Task 2. Room for rent
  • Interpersonal & Presentational Task 3. Off-campus living services
• KOREAN FLAVORS – 한국어와 한국 문화 Korean Language and Culture
  • Irregular conjugation: More about –은/는
  • Living arrangements in Korea
• I GOT THIS! – 할 수 있어요! Async. Practices and Tasks
  • Integrated Performance Task Link
  • WB Link

What makes a good place to live? What information would you look for when searching for a place to live? Now let’s read these dialogues. What are they talking about?

1. A–(으)ㄴ가/V–나 I wonder… could you tell me?

You learned in your first year that the ending –(으)ㄹ까expresses self–directed questions (“I wonder…”).  As you recall, –(으)ㄹ까 carries a sense of future or strong uncertainty because of the future marker ㄹ:

You can express wondering with a simple sense of curiosity using the present–tense version:

This same self–wondering can tone down a question or ask a question in a round–about way. The politeness marker –요 makes the “wondering” a gentle question; without it, the wondering can be perceived as self-talk, just wondering, which obligates no listener to answer.

Be aware of how –은가 /–나 gets fused with other endings:

2. Conjugation

To conjugate:

• Use –(으)ㄴ가 after adjectives and 이다
• Use –나 after verbs, 있다, and any past tense

Adjectives & 이다 + – (으)ㄴ가

Verbs, 있다 & past tense + –나

Try on your own:

<Answer key> 찾나요, 찾았나요, 듣나요, 들었나요, 만드나요, 만들었나요, 계약하나요, 계약했나요, 어두운가요, 어두웠나요, 긴가요, 길었나요, 큰가요, 컸나요, 이웃인가요, 이웃이었나요?

1. Review: V–(으)줄 알다/모르다 know how to

You learned –(으)ㄹ 줄 알다 know how to in Chapter 9:

2. A/V–(으)ㄹ 줄 알았다/몰랐다 I assumed that; I didn’t expect that

Sentences endings in –(으)ㄹ 줄 알았다/몰랐다 imply that I or you were mistaken in our assumptions or presumptions.

–(으)ㄹ 줄 알았다

This ending indicates that I didn’t know it would be the case... (In this interpretation, The syllable immediately preceding 줄 receives a high tone, the pitch quickly trailing off starting from 줄  and onward.)

–(으)ㄹ 줄 몰랐다

–(으)ㄹ 줄 몰랐다 is often used with 이렇게, 저렇게, and 그렇게 and the exaggerative suffix –(이)나; it has only one interpretation: I didn’t know it would be so...

-(으)ㄴ 줄 몰랐다 offers a sense of closure, where my realization is met by a fact:

Can you FEEL the difference between these two sentences? Yes? You must already have a native speaker’s intuition!

–(으)ㄹ 줄 알았다 (idiomatic)

The second interpretation of this ending is I knew it would be the case, which is usually said in an on-your-high-horse way. (In this interpretation, 줄 receives a high tone, and the pitch drops on 알 with a sing-songy ending in 았어.)

3. Conjugation

–(으)ㄹ 줄 알았다/몰랐다 follows the pattern of –(으) type conjugation.

Try on your own:

1. 만큼 as much as

When –만큼 comes after a noun, it carries the meaning “as much as the NOUN” with a sense of exaggeration about how much (or little).

–만큼 is also used with Adjectives and an 없다 phrase to convey the meaning of “it is the most Adjective; (there is nothing more Adjective).”

Create a role play with your partner using the key grammar expressions and new vocabulary from this lesson. Include 5 to 6 meaningful rounds of dialogue. Take turns and feel free to add details to make the conversation lively.

• Context: Two people are having a conversation about finding a new room/apartment/house for rent. Ask and answer questions about the neighborhood and share what has been different from expectations. Take turns asking questions to decide which room/apartment would work better for you.
• Participants: A person who is looking for a new place and a person who recently moved to a new place.
• Key Expressions: –나요, –(으)ㄴ가요, –(으)ㄹ 줄 알았다/몰랐다, –만큼
• Sample dialogue:

At the Welcome Reception

Noah and Dami are at the welcoming reception hosted by the Office of International Students. Listen to the dialogue and take notes in Korean.

Now, talk with your classmates to share the information each of you wrote down. Then, listen to the dialogue again and finalize the list.

편의시설: community facilities or amenities such as gym, park, library, etc.

Room for Rent

1. You and your friend are looking for a room near campus and you found this advertisement from the local housing platform.

Helpful Vocabulary

2. [Role Play] Three people in a group. Two friends are potential tenants. One person is a current tenant living in the apartment and is looking for someone they can share the apartment with.

1. Read the advertisement and write down the main information in Korean.
2. Talk with your friend who will share the room with you about the information in this advertisement.
3. List questions you and your friend have and discuss them before contacting the current tenant.
4. Contact the current tenant to ask and answer questions and have further conversations to reach the next step.
5. Make your decision and share the reasons.

Off–Campus Living Services

You are one of the undergraduate interns at your school’s office of off–campus living services. Your supervisor has assigned a task to your group to help incoming ESL students from Korea find a place to stay this summer. Read the message from one of those students and communicate with her in Korean.

Provide housing guidelines with two options, comparing features, rent, location, and addressing any questions about the listings.

Here is the message she wrote:

은/는 for contrast

Because of its role in marking old information and Topic, 은/는 has another power: to express contrast, presumably because one can only contrast items and matters that one is already familiar with.

Consider this:

In the second answer, you are not contrasting credit card and cash.  Cash is the topic, and credit card is the new information.  You are offering up the information that by the way, you have a credit card.

은/는 for change of topic

은/는 is used to mark a new Topic, when changing from one Topic to another. There is not a great difference between contrasting and changing topics, after all.

It counts as changing topics when you introduce a new topic, such as “How about…?” or “What about…?” even if there is no preceding conversation.  For example, it’s 6:00PM, and you walk into a room to find your child eating ice cream.  You say, “저녁은?” (What about dinner? Did you eat dinner? You are going to spoil your dinner. Why are you eating ice cream at dinner time?)

은/는 for natural laws & axioms

Naturally following from known topics above is the usage of 은/는in statements of the laws of nature or received wisdom about inherent characteristics or generic descriptions:

Again, the subject noun is taken as shared, old information and is the Topic. Even the sentence as a whole is not new information.

Living Arrangements in Korea

Image Credit: Pixabay

For foreigners and others seeking housing, a city like Seoul that’s been around for a long time offers every kind of housing you could think of, from villas to sleeping rooms. For the most part, all the different types of housing are available all throughout the city. As for location, the main concern should just be being close enough – or having an easy enough transit route – to your daily activities, and maybe trying to be back off the main streets for more quiet nights. Seoul is a metropolis, so there will be convenience stores, delivery services and access to public transportation near anywhere you get a room or apartment.

Apartments

The most common type of housing in Seoul is the apartment (아파트). There are enormous apartment buildings (with 20-30 floors or more) in groups all around the outskirts of Seoul and different parts of town as well as individual buildings of all sizes throughout the city.  They come with different numbers of rooms, different amenities and are of different ages, so it’ll be important to get the specifics of any apartment you consider.  Laundry hook-ups may be in the shower area of the bathroom or outside in older buildings or there may be no laundry for individual apartments. On the other hand, even older apartments may have 온돌!  Some multi-building complexes come with an exclusive parking lot, security guards and a shared outdoor space for residents, including playgrounds, shopping arcades, and outdoor athletic facilities.

One big difference between Seoul and the US is that there are very few cases where young people share an apartment. This is probably because young people traditionally live with their parents until they get married. And if they happen to be from outside of Seoul, they don’t know anyone yet to share an apartment with.

Studio Apartment (원룸)

These days studios (single rooms), 원룸 [원눔; 월룸], are more the trend than자취or 하숙.  Studios are usually offered in smaller buildings. They usually come with개인 주방/부엌 (kitchen) and 공동 세탁실 (shared laundry room) with access to 세탁기 (washer) but typically not 건조기 (dryer). If there’s no laundry room, a 빨래방 (laundromat) and 세탁소(drycleaners) are nearby. Usually 가구 (furniture) and 가전제품 (household appliances) come with the house. In most cases there will be 시설 (amenities) such as 고속 인터넷 (high–speed internet connection) or 광역 인터넷 (broad–band internet connection) and even a security camera (CCTV).  You may also hear the term 고시텔 to refer to studios. This term comes from 고시, civil service exams, and refers to the usage of these studios by students who need a quiet place away from home to study. This type of housing is especially common in 신촌and 신림동 for students, and in 종로 and 역삼동 with office workers in mind.

Renting

There are some differences in how payment and housing contracts work in Korea as opposed to other countries. Uniquely Korean, 전세 is renting a house for two years by paying a lump–sum fee (“key money”) up-front that is returned to the renter when the term is up. The landlords generally make money through investing and getting interest on the lump sum payment. There can also be realtor’s fees, and the landlord can hold the deposit if the tenant needs to move before the contract is up and new tenants have to be found.

월세 is rent paid monthly, but a deposit must be paid up–front along with first and last month’s rent and realtor fees, oftentimes required in cash.  Also, the amount of the deposit can affect the monthly rent rate. The deposit is returned to the tenant at the end of the lease contract period, minus any missed rent payments.