My Korean Diary ❤

[Beginner level] Lesson 8: Counters

We are always surrounded by objects, people, animals and many other stuff, and more often than not, we get to COUNT them. Korean has a different kind of counting system from that of English. In Korean, there are hundreds of counters or counting units. Let us find out how to use them in context and also learn a few other counters.

In Korean, there are many words that are used as counting units. In English, you can just say the number and then the word for what you are counting (i.e. a person, two cats, three houses, etc), but in Korean, you need to use separate counters for different subjects. You can compare the Korean counters to the English words that are used for counting things that are uncountable nouns (i.e. bread, water, butter, etc).  

 Since there are too many counters to remember all at once, it is better to learn them one by one as you practice using certain words. 

EXAMPLE:

⭐ English: number + noun  ➡ a car, two pencils, three books, four people, etc 

⭐ Korean: noun + number + counter
➡ "pencil + one + counter for pencil"
➡ "student + three + counter for people" 

Keep in mind two things when you use any counters. First, the native korean numbers 1,2,3,4 and 20 have slightly different forms when you used with counters: 한, 두, 세,네, and 스무

• 하나 ➡ 한 (1)

• 둘 ➡ 두 (2)

• 셋 ➡ 세 (3)

• 넷 ➡ 네 (4)

• 스물 ➡ 스무 (20)

➡ The second thing you should know is that Koreans use native korean numbers for a small number of object and prefer using Chinese numbers for a large number of them.

For example, 2 people is 두명 and 75 people is 칠십오명.

Okay, I think we're fully ready to use counter with numbers. Let's start right away.

1. ITEM COUNTER: Noun + Number of things + 개

➡There are literally hundreds of counters in the Korean language, but not all of them are always used. As long as they understand each other, some Korean people just use the simplest and easiest counter they remember to count certain words and it does not confuse anyone.

For example, in Korean, a pencil is 연필 [yeon-pi] and the counter for pencils is 자루 [ja-ru]. The word 자루 [ja-ru] is also used for counting pens, bags containing grains, and also knives. So instead of using the word 자루 all the time for 연필, many Korean people just use the general counter for things, which is 개 [gae]. 

⭐ 연필 한 자루 [yeon-pil han ja-ru] = one pencil

⭐ 연필 한 개 [yeon-pil han gae] = one pencil  

This does NOT always work for all counters. Some counters that are very commonly used are almost never replaced with 개.

For example, the counter for cars is 대 [dae], and it is never replaced with 개 [gae] just to simplify it. In other words, changing 연필 한 자루 to 연필 한 개 is okay, but changing 차 한 대 to 차 한 개 is not okay and considered incorrect. 

This is only because the counter 대 is much more frequently used than the counter 자루, but basically, as a learner of the Korean language, it is much better to be able to use an incorrect counter and be given feedback rather than choose not to say anything.