Vocabulary
The vocabulary is separated into nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs for the purpose of simplicity.
Hover your mouse over any word to see examples of that word in use (you probably won’t be able to understand the grammar within the sentences at this point, but it is good to see as you progress through your learning).
A FREE PDF file neatly presenting all of these words and example sentences in addition to common usages and specific notes can be found here.
Want to give your brain practice at recognizing these words? Try finding the words in this vocabulary list in a Word Search.
Nouns:
한국 = Korea
도시 = city
이름 = name
저 = I
나 = I
남자 = man
여자 = woman
그 = that
이 = this
저 = that (when object is far away)
것 = thing
의자 = chair
탁자 = table
선생님 = teacher
침대 = bed
집 = house
차 = car
사람 = person
책 = book
컴퓨터 = computer
나무 = tree
소파 = sofa
중국 = China
일본 = Japan
문 = door
의사 = doctor
Verbs:
이다 = to be (acts like an adjective)
Adverbs:
안 = not
Other:
네 = yes
아니 = no
For help memorizing these words, try using our Memrise tool.
Greeting Words
When learning a language, people always want to learn “hello,” “how are you,” and “thank you” before anything else. I know that. However, at this stage you onlyknow words – and have no knowledge or experience in how to use or conjugate these words. The grammar within these words is too complex for you to understand right now. However, you can just memorize these words as one unit and not worry about the grammar within them at this point.
안녕하세요 = hello
감사합니다 or 감사해요 = thank you
(감사하다 is the infinitive form of this word. It can be conjugated a variety of different ways [discussed in Lesson 5 and Lesson 6])
잘 지내세요? = How are you
Technically the appropriate expression in Korean, but not as common as “how are you” in English. I would say that using “잘 지내세요?” is an English style of greeting people in Korean.
제발 = Please
It is, of course, important for you to memorize these expressions in Korean, but you need to know that there is a reason why they are said that way. For now, don’t worry about why they are said that way, and simply memorize them. We will get back to them in later lessons when they become important.
Sentence Word Order
One of the hardest things to wrap your head around in Korean is the alien-like sentence structure. For our purposes in Lesson 1, Korean sentences are written in the following order:
Subject – Object – Verb (for example: I hamburger eat)
Or
Subject – Adjective (for example: I beautiful)
I am going to quickly explain what a “subject” and “object” mean, as your ability to understand later concepts depends on your understanding of this.
The subject refers to person/thing/noun/whatever that is acting. The subject does the action of the verb. For example, the subject in each sentence below is underlined:
I went to the park
I will go to the park
My mom loves me
He loves me
The dog ran fast
The clouds cleared up
In English, the subject always comes before the verb.
