UNIT 1: LESSON 2
Nouns:
나라 = country
가방 = backpack
창문 = window
잡지 = magazine
방 = room
냉장고 = refrigerator
개 = dog
강아지 = puppy
고양이 = cat
쥐 = rat
펜 = pen
전화기 = phone
커피 = coffee
식당 = restaurant
건물 = building
텔레비전 = television
미국 = USA
캐나다 = Canada
호텔 = hotel
학교 = school
은행 = bank
Verbs:
있다 = to have
있다 = to be at a location
Adverbs
안 = inside
위 = on top
밑 = below
옆 = beside
뒤 = behind
앞 = in front
여기 = here
Introduction
In Lesson 1 you learned about simple Korean particles. To review, you learned that:
~는 or ~은 are used to indicate the subject (or main person/thing) in a sentence.
~를 or ~을 are used to indicate the object in a sentence.
For example, in this sentence: "I ate a hamburger"
I is the subject of the sentence
Hamburger is the object
Eat is the verb
In this Lesson, you will learn about the particles ~이/가. In all situations, ~이 is attached
to nouns in which the last letter is a consonant (like ~은) and ~가 is attached to nouns in
which the last letter is a vowel (like ~는). For example:
책 ends in a consonant (ㄱ), so "~이" is added: "책이."
소파 ends in a vowel (ㅏ), so so "~가" is added: "소파가."
But, in what situations should we use ~이/가? You will start learning about when to use
~이/가 instead of ~는/은 in this lesson. Before we do that, I would like to teach you how
to use the word "있다" in sentences. Let's get started.
있다: To have
The word "있다" has two distinct meanings - both of which are very common and
important to an early learner of Korean. As you can see in the vocabulary list of this
lesson, the words have the following meanings:
있다 = to have
있다 = to be at a location
You learned in Lesson 1 that 이다 (to be) acts as an adjective in Korean. 있다 (to have)
also acts an adjective in Korean. At this point, this is important to you for one reason.
You learned in Lesson 1 that sentences with adjectives cannot act on an object. Thus, you
cannot have a word with the particle ~를/을 attached to it if the predicating word in a
sentence is an adjective (because ~를/을 indicates an object in a sentence).
If this weren't the case, we could do the following:
I have a pen
I 는 pen을 있다
나는 + 펜을 + 있다
나는 펜을 있다 = I have a pen
BUT, remember, 있다 acts as an adjective, so we cannot have an object in that sentence.
Therefore, the use of ~을 on "펜" is incorrect. To get around this, we can attach ~이/가 to
the object instead o ~를/을 in sentences with 있다. This is one usage of the particle
~이/가; that is, to indicate the thing that one "has" in sentences with "있다." Look at the
following example sentences:
나는 펜이 있다 = I have a pen
(나는 펜이 있어 / 저는 펜이 있어요)
나는 차가 있다 = I have a car
(나는 차가 있어 / 저는 차가 있어요)
나는 잡지가 있다 = I have a magazine
(나는 잡지가 있어 / 저는 잡지가 있어요)
나는 가방이 있다 = I have a backpack
(나는가방이 있어 / 저는 가방이 있어요)
Again, note that ~을/를 is not used to indicate the object that one "has." Instead, ~이/가
are used.
Remember that the example sentences provided in Lessons 1, 2, 3 and 4 are not
conjugated. While conjugations are provided (one formal and one informal) in
parentheses below each example sentence, the grammar within these conjugations is too
complicated for you to understand right now. For now, focus on what is being presented
in these first four lessons before you start worrying about conjugating sentences and
using honorifics.
