Daily Dose of Hangul (한글)

I really feel sorry for my self and for those who have been looking forward to new post that I cannot update more frequently.  I have been constantly reading the new handbook I got authored by Samuel Martin called Practical Korean.  It’s another book I just got from Powerbooks  three weeks ago.

Since the creation of Elementary Korean is actually inspired by the the first edition of this book,  the approach in explaining is somehow similar except that Practical Korean is using romanization heavily as opposed to Elementary Korean which uses romanization for pronunciation simulation purposes.

I found this lesson on the use of  of the particle -도.  Previously I learned that this is attached to a word (usually a noun) which gives meaning  ‘too’ or ‘also’.  Like when you say 나도  (nado), it means me too or me also.  Previously this particle has been compared with it’s brother 또 (Ddo) which means the same but the difference is, its a stand alone word.  It does not have to be connected to a noun.

Now I learned a practical application of the particle -도 in combination with the verbs 좋아요  (choayo) and 괜잖아요 (gwaenchanayo).   좋아요 means ‘is good’ or ‘to like’ while 괜잖아요 means ‘is okay’ or ‘to be alright’ or ‘makes no difference’.  The particle is actually attached to the infinitive form of the verb, in present tense.

The use of -도 in combination with 좋아요 or 괜잖아요 gives the same meaning as the English statements that asks or gives permission in this thought flow:

• ‘is it okay if I…?
• ‘can i…?
• it is okay for you to…
• you can…

He are some examples:

내일 공부해도 좋아요? (Naeil kongbuhado choayo?) – Is it okay to study tomorrow?

여기 앉아도 괜잖아요 (Yogi anjado gwaenchanayo) – I don’t mind if you sit here.  You can sit here

연필로 써도 좋아요 (Yeonpilro sseodeo chuayo) – You can write using pencil.

이 방에 계셔도 괜잖아요 (I bange kyesyeodo gwaenchanayo) – It’s okay for you to stay in this room.

I have been reading comments about this particle that  is used to connect two noun.  It actually means ‘and’ in English usage — like books and bags, music and lyrics etc.  미안해요. It’s my bad. I really had it interchanged, the book and also a Korean friend confirmed that -과 (gwa) is used after a consonant ending word while -와 (wa) is used after a vowel.

So for the those who have been asking questions about it 과 goes with the consonant and the book was right it was my eyes that is not.

This made me review the entire lesson on this particle.  To recap, this particle is attached at the end of the noun or nouns used in a sentence like 연필과 종이와 책 (yeonpil-gwa, chongi-wa chaek).  This means pencil, paper and book.  If these nouns are used as topic in a sentence the topic marker -은/-는  will be added in the last noun, so in this case it would be 연필과 종이와 책은 (은 since 책 is ending in consonant).

Unlike the English counterpart this particle is pronounced as if part of the original word.  The pause is after the particle as illustrated below:

• Korean: 연필과 <pause> 종이와 <pause> 책
• English: pencil<pause> and paper <pause> and books (this is just an illustration as we know that it is grammatically incorrect to use and over and over again in English for series.  We use and before the last noun in the series and separate each word with just comma)

Before ‘pasting’ the post below, something random happened.  Yes I meant pasting because this post minus the first paragraph was posted 3 days ago in another blogsite that I am maintaining about my favorite Korean artist. Funny… I just realized today.

This post reminds me of an earlier topic I learned about saying ‘via’ or ‘by way’ or ‘through’.  This particle that I am referring to is 로 (ro) but this time its the pattern:

noun(를/을) 통해(서) where the object particle in the noun is actually optional.  통해(서) attached to a noun which is optionally marked with object particle means through or by way of the ,noun>.

This pattern is typically used with nouns indicating sources of information like person, media sources, activities etc.

Here are some examples of the use of this pattern:

1.  친구를 통해서  만났어요. (Chingureul tonghaeso mannaseoyo). I met her through a friend.

2.  도서관을 통해서 받을 수가 있어요. (Dosogran tonghaeso padeul suga isseoyo)  You can get it thorugh the library.