I was reading the following sentence, 마냐라면 눈동자의 색깔이 수시로 바뀔 게다. I was all confident at first, certain that I could understand the sentence perfectly: A witch’s pupil color changes into sushi… Yep, that doesn’t make any sense.
Turns out, 수시로 actually means frequently. And my reasoning was also flawed from the beginning, since sushi isn’t 수시 but 스시 (the loanword) or 초밥 (醋밥) with, funnily enough, the hanja for vinegar.
The one time I thought I managed to catch a konglish word before looking it up and feeling stupid…
Tbf, I see 스시 all the the time (more common than 초밥 in my experience) but my dumb brains still frequently types 수시 when looking for it. Even in Japanese, it sounds like 수시 not 스시… so not sure why Koreans transcribed it that way!
(Can I also say that I love that you are fine with ‘마냐’ & ‘눈동자’ but hadn’t seen 스시 )
Oups, that was a typo, I meant 마녀. But tbh I feel like my knowledge of Korean vocab is strange, I know some super specific and uncommon words and then idk some super easy and common words? There’s always these moments where I look up a word and somehow it’s a TOPIK I word that I don’t remember ever seeing or hearing before.
I came across a new sort of grammar form today while reading 마녀를 잡아라 | L22??. Or well, maybe not exactly a grammar form, but rather a new way to categorize and refer to people. ~뱅이 and ~쟁이!
It’s a pretty simple structure of noun~뱅이/쟁이.
So a lazy person would be 게으름뱅이 or 게으름쟁이. A poor person would be 가난뱅이, etc. Both suffixes have similar uses, although it seems that 뱅이 has a more negative connotation and use.
I also stumbled upon a super interesting article about Words denoting human beings in Korean while looking into this, and it turned out to be a real treasure trove of information and examples!
Today, I learned a nice little grammar point: Noun-별.
~별 is added to nouns that represent more than one type or level of something. When this is done, it classifies the different types/levels and indicates that something is done (separately) for each type/level. Lesson 126: To be Grouped or Classified by: ~별
Also a new word, 모둠 for group/assortment, found in the following sentence in 매일매일 아침밥 먹으리 | L15?? :
작년에 담임선생님은 모둠별 숙제를 엄청 잘 내줬었는데 그때 속 터져 죽을 뻔했던 적이 한두 번이 아니다.
Here, adding the two, we get 모둠별!
I picked up this book because I thought it’d be a very quick and easy read, but vocab is actually a lot harder than I expected, and while most sentences aren’t too complex, I’ve already come across a few new grammar points.
As I was perusing the howtostudykorean website, I also came across these two lessons:
Also, a little note on the Hanja in 의성어 (擬聲語, onomatopoeia) and 의태어 (擬態語, mimetic word). The 어/語 is easy, it’s the Hanja for word/language in 한국어.
The other Hanja that they have in common, 의/擬, has the meaning of copying or mimicking here. Looking at other words that contain this Hanja, there’s 모의, meaning mock, as in 모의 시험 for mock test or simulation test.
Now, looking at the specific Hanja, 성/聲 is actually the Hanja for sound or voice, like in 음성 for voice. On the other hand, 태/態 means manner or condition, and it’s found in 상태 (condition, state). So just looking at the Hanja, 의성어 (擬聲語) is a word the mimics a sound while 의태어 (擬態語) is a word that mimics a state/form.
It’s a nice insight into the difference between these two types of words, and I also found here an article with more precisions.
It turns out, eating 며칠 똥 is actually a thing! It’s supposed to be full of calcium, vitamin B and amino acids. I even came across this pretty funny article about anchovies, that mentions the debate of whether people should eat 멸치 똥.
As a bonus, I also learned the word for acid, 산 (酸). It turns out that when you think about it, there aren’t many things that 아미노산 could mean.
A whole new world of words just opened to me: words in 치.
I just stumbled upon 몸치, which basically means a super clumsy person, with two left feet… That’s broken down into 몸 for body and 치 which comes from the hanja 癡 for idiot. Interestingly, I noticed the radical 疒 for sickness.
There are actually a lot more words like this, 길치 (bad at directions), 박치 (bad at rhythm), and they all basically mean a person that’s really bad at something. Here’s an article explaining just that.
New word, 쿠데타. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read this, I thought surely this can’t be it and tried sounding it out. Except it turns out it is what I thought!
So yeah, 쿠데타 is a coup, or quite literally a coup d’état. Just a fun konglish word(or should I say konfrench? ).
I didn’t know about this thread, it is an absolute gem, and also maybe the straw that will break the back of my reluctance to dive into hanja just yet.
I love love love seeing all those tidbits about hanja and 한국어.
Does anyone have any recommendations for getting started? Do I just have to learn Japanese / Mandarin? The only resource I can remember coming across is TTMIK’s Your First Hanja Guide, is that any good?