Learn Korean - For Beginners [ Monthly Update ]

Describing Time In Korean Pt.2

Hello everyone and welcome back FINALLY to another lesson :)) I am really sorry that I haven't been posting, but I have been busy with exams and tests that I have been preparing for. I hope you understand <3 But now I'm on a summer break, so I hope you're ready to learn some more Korean!

In today's lesson we're going to learn a little more about how we can describe time in Korean. This is part two of the lesson. If you haven't checked out part 1, make sure to check it out before you jump into this part! You can also check out the lessons "Day Of The Week" and "Dates In Korean". Those two chapters will be very useful for this lesson :))

Second = 초 = cho

Minute = 분 = bun (pronounced "boon" and not bun as in a hair bun)

Hour = 시간 = shi-gan (This can also mean "time")

Day = 일 = il

Week = 주 = ju

Month = 개월 / 달 = kae-wol / dal (달 is pronounced with a t instead of a d. So; Tal) (The one to the left is used when describing time and it is the one that you would see the most in Korea, whilst the one to the right is used to describe the noun "month".)

Year = 년 = nyeon

Decade = 십년간 = ship-nyeon-gan (십 means 10. 년 means year. 간 comes from 시간 which means "time". So all put together means 10 year time as in a "decade".)

Century = 세기 = se-gi

That pretty much sums up all the terms used to describe time. Now let's use these terms in an example before going into details.

Let's learn how to say "for" so and so amount of time.

In this case "for" is 동안 in Korean.

Examples:

삼십분 동안 = for 30 minutes = sam-ship-bun dong-an

세시간 동안 = for 3 hours = se-shi-gan dong-an (this is where the lesson on "Dates In Korean" will come in handy. Just like we do when we describe months, we sometimes remove a character from a word. For example "세월 = se-wol. 세 originally comes from 셋 = set, which means three. In Korean the "ㅅ" is removed from the bottom. So 세월 means March because it is the 3rd month of the year. In this case we say 세시간 where we have also removed the "ㅅ" from the bottom of 셋 = three and it has become 세시간 = three hours.

십년간 동안 = for a decade (or: for a 10 year time) = ship-nyeon-gan dong-an

Now you know what the different terms are when describing time. And you know how to say "for" so and so amount of time. In the next lesson, you're going to learn the NATIVE Korean Numbers, that will be useful in the next lesson on "describing time" :))