Korean Way of Speech

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From the course by Yonsei University

First Step Korean

4010 ratings

Yonsei University

First Step Korean

4010 ratings

This is an elementary-level Korean language course, consisting of 5 lessons with 4 units, and covers 4 skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking. The main topics include basic expressions used in everyday life, such as greetings, introducing yourself, talking about your family and a daily life and so on. Each lesson covers dialogues, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, quizzes and role-plays. After completing this course, you will be able to 1. read and write Korean alphabet. 2. communicate in Korean with basic expressions. 3. learn basic knowledge on Korean culture. It’s fun and easy to follow! Enjoy it!

From the lesson

Greetings and Introducing

In this module, you will learn how to greet, ask someone's nationalities / jobs and answer those questions in Korean. After completing the lessons, you will be able to introduce yourself, greet a person and talk about someone's nationalities and occupations.

Korean Way of Speech2:51

Meet the Instructors

Seung Hae Kang
Associate Professor
Korean Language Education as a Foreign Language

Korean way of speech.

Korean people say [FOREIGN] when they greet someone who is same age or older.

But when they speak to children or someone younger, they do not say [FOREIGN].

They simply say [FOREIGN].

This is because the type of speech varies according to one's age or

position in society.

The reason for the Korean being challenging among many languages in

the world is because of the complex system of honorifics in Korean.

Korean honorifics change according to the endings used at the end of the sentence.

First, there is a formal speech style, informal speech style, and

then there's [FOREIGN], or neutral speech style.

There is father, a kid, and the father's formal teacher greeting each other.

[FOREIGN], said the kid.

[FOREIGN], said the teacher.

[FOREIGN], the father.

[FOREIGN], said the teacher.

As you see, all of these greetings are different.

First, the kid says [FOREIGN] to his father's formal teacher.

And the teacher says [FOREIGN] using [FOREIGN], or neutral speech style.

The father once again says [FOREIGN], which is the informal style.

Or [FOREIGN], the formal style, to his teacher.

And his teacher uses [FOREIGN] to say [FOREIGN] to the father,

once a student who has grown up to become an adult.

Also, people of the same age or

relatedly the same age generally use [FOREIGN] to communicate among themselves.

[FOREIGN] is used as a sign of closeness between friends,

relatives, siblings and classmates.

But in the past, elders used a different form of [FOREIGN] to younger people

to treat them as equal adults.

However, it is hard to hear this type of [FOREIGN] used amongst people

in their 20s or 30s.

If people were to communicate in English,

all of the words would be the same in any settings.

In other words, in the case of English, showing respect to the other person

is not done by changing the sentence structure, such as sentence endings or

words, but rather, it is done by changing the method of expression.

Due to this complex honorific system in Korea,

there are still elderly people who differentiate the younger generation

between those who are courteous and those who are not.

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