KOREAN LANGUAGE TUTORIAL

LESSON 14

Korean lessons: Lesson 14

Pure Korean Numbers
Another set of numbers are of native Korean numbers. They are indigenous in Korean, possibly stemmed through a different route from that of the Chinese-based set. Although they used to have a complete system of native numbers that can go up to three digits (or more), they now only use the numbers up to two digits (99). The formation of numbers is quite similar to that of English numbers in the sense that you have a set of numbers for single digits (1-10) and another set for tens (10-90).

Numbers and formation
Single digits
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Native numbers 하나 둘 셋 넷 다섯 여섯 일곱 여덟 아홉 열
Ten, twenty, thirty....
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Native numbers 열 스물 서른 마흔 쉰 예순 일흔 여든 아흔 백
The formation is quite simple:
15 = 10+5 열 다섯
21 = 20+1 스물 하나
87 = 80+7 여든 일곱
Using with counters and measure words
Such formation as "five birds," however, is not directly applicable in Korean. When you speak of a thing with its amount, the proper formation should be the following:
**Noun + number + counter**
noun + number + counter
새
(bird) 다섯
(five) 마리
(counter for animals)
Thus, an expression like "다섯 새" is not used in Korean. It may remind you of such expressions as "two bottles of wine" in English. It is necessary in English to specify the measure unit when it comes to uncountable nouns, such as 'water,' 'coffee,' etc. In Korean, this is applied to all nouns. Does this mean that they have different counters for all nouns and that you have to memorize all of them? Probably. Do not panic, though, for there are a certain number of counters that are more frequent and common than the others, and you could strat by learning them and then move on to the rest.
There is yet another issue of when to use Chinese numbers and when to use native Korean numbers. This will be discussed in the next lesson.
Slight changes when used before counters
Also, when before counters, numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 20, change their shape slightly, for the ease of pronunciation.
numbers changes examples
하나 → 한 새 한 마리
"a bird"
(마리: counter for animals)
둘 → 두 학생 두 명
"two students"
(명: counter for people)
셋 → 세 사과 세 개
"three apples"
(개: counter for countable objects)
넷 → 네 책 네 권
"four volumes of books"
(권: counter for books)
스물 → 스무 나이 스무 살
"age of twenty"
(살: counter for age)

Pure Korean Numbers
These are the pure Korean numbers as provided earlier:
하나 = one
둘 = two
셋 = three
넷 = four
다섯 = five
여섯 = six
일곱 = seven
여덟 = eight
아홉 = nine
열 = ten
스물 = twenty
서른 = thirty
마흔 = forty
쉰 = fifty
Creating numbers 11-19, 21-29, 31-39 (etc..) is easy, and is done like this:
11: 열 하나 (10 + 1)
12: 열 둘 (10 + 2)
21: 스물 하나 (20 + 1)
59: 쉰 아홉 (5 + 9)
After 60, regardless of what you are doing, pure Korean numbers are rarely used. I was talking to my (Korean) girlfriend about this once, and she said that she didn't think there was even a pure Korean number for 60. I told her "yes, there is: 예순." To which she replied "Oh yeah, I forgot." When you get that high (even as high as 40-50) it is not uncommon to use the Sino-Korean numbers instead.
The pure Korean numbers are used when:
- You are counting things/people/actions
- Talking about the hour in time
- Sometimes used when talking about months