KOREAN

55

Vocabulary

Nouns:

오락실 = arcade

줄거리 = summary/plot

체육관 = gymnasium

조직 = organization

양식 = style/mode/pattern/way

양식 = form (to fill out)

기말고사 = final exam

중간고사 = midterm exam

중간지점 = halfway point

나머지 = the rest/the remainder

협약 = an agreement/treaty/pact

여론 = public opinion

Verbs:

기록하다 = record/write down

등교하다 = going to school

하교하다 = leaving school

고민하다 = worry

활동하다 = activity/do an activity

수정하다 = correct/modify/revise

데려다 주다 = take a person somewhere

덧붙이다 = adding one more thing

묶다 = tie up

살피다 = to see/watch closely

차다 = kick

고치다 = fix/repair

(첫눈에) 반하다 = fall in love at first sight

Adjectives:

부지런하다 = diligent

희미하다 = dim/faint/vague

Adverbs and Other Words:

빈손으로 = empty handed

예상 밖으로 = unexpectedly

중간 = middle time period

For help memorizing these words, try using our Memrise tool.

Introduction

In this lesson, you will learn about the grammatical principles ~(이)나, and ~거나. Both of these can be used in sentences to mean "or" in Korean, but they cannot be used interchangeably. ~(이)나 can be attached to nouns, and ~거나 can be attached to verbs. Lets look at ~(이)나 first.

(Noun) or (Noun): ~(이)나

This is really a simple connector that can be added to nouns to mean "or." The only difficulty comes with grasping the difference in formation compared to English grammar. In English, we write the word "or" as a separate word. However, in Korean, when you want to say "or" you must attach~(이)나 to the first noun. ~이나 gets added to a noun ending in a consonant and ~나 gets added to a noun ending in a vowel. For example:

저는 떡이나 김치를 먹고 싶어요 = I want to eat dduk or kimchi

오락실이나 공원에 갈래요? = Shall we go to the arcade or park?

이 영화나 저 영화를 볼래요? = Shall we see this movie, or that movie?

You can actually add it to a noun without having another noun come after it. When you do this, the meaning changes a little bit; since there is no second noun to follow "or" it gets translated to "or something..." or a similar meaning. For example:

집에 가서 밥이나 먹을 거에요 = I'm going to go home and eat rice (or something...)

저는 공부나 할 거에요 = I'm going to study (or something...)

(Verb) or (Verb): ~거나

You can essentially do the same thing as was taught in the previous section with verbs (as opposed to nouns) by using the connector ~거나. You can use ~거나 to connect two verbs to each other with "or." For example:

저는 눕거나 앉을 수 없어요 = I can't lay down or sit down

돈을 주거나 선물을 주세요 = Give me money or a present, which could also be said as:

돈이나 선물을 주세요 = Give me money or a present

Actually, a lot of the signs on buses in Korea have a warning message on them, and the warning message has this ~거나 grammatical principle in the sentence. It says something like this:

문이 완전히 열릴 때까지 버스에서 내리거나 문에 기대지 마세요

It's actually a difficult sentence with a lot of different Korean grammatical principles. Fortunately, you should know all of these grammatical principles by now! It says: Until the door is completely opened, don't get off the bus or lean on the door!

Though these two grammatical principles can be used to mean "or" in Korean, there is still one more word that you can use to reflect this meaning.

If not: 아니면

You learned a long time ago that ~아니다 means "to not be" or something like that (the meaning depends on the usage). You also learned a few lessons ago that by adding ~면 to a word stem, you can create the meaning of "if." By combining 아니다 with ~면, we get "아니면" which literally means "if not."

Though this means "if not," the meaning (in English and Korean) is very similar to "or" when placed in between two nouns:

저는 밥 아니면 사과를 먹고 싶어요 = I want to eat rice, if not, I want to eat apples - which could be translated as "I want to eat rice or apples."

Though the meaning of 아니면 could sometimes mean "or," it is easier to remember the literal meaning of "아니면" being "if not." When used like this, it is generally placed between two sentences. For example:

저는 밥을 먹고 싶어요. 아니면 죽을 것 같아요 = I want to eat rice. If not, I will probably die

저는 공부해 야 돼요. 아니면 시험을 떨어질 거에요 = I need to study. If not, I will fail the exam

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post on our Facebook page! (the comments here on the site are acting weird, sorry). Or, if you want to practice making sentences on your own, write a comment on our Facebook page and we can correct them for you right away!