LEARN KOREAN (한국어) [GRAMMAR] #1

KOREAN PARTICLE ~들 AND USING 몇 WITH A COUNTER

You have probably been asking yourself 'how can I make something plural?' Up to now, I haven't mentioned anything about plural words in Korean. The reason for this is Korean people rarely distinguish between singular and plural. For example, if I say:

나는 사과를 샀어

This could mean "I bought an apple" OR "I bought apples." This seems crazy to English speakers, but this is just how it is done in Korean. In most cases, the context can make it clear if you bought 'an apple' or if you bought 'apples.' If you really want to make it clear that you bought one apple, you could say:

나는 사과 한 개를 샀어 - I bought one apple

When dealing with the ambiguity of singular/plural sentences in Korean, you could also use the word 몇 which can replace a number in these examples: 두 개/두 명/두 번. When 몇 replaces a number in these cases (몇 번/몇 명/몇 개), it has the meaning of "some ____." For example, instead of saying: "나는 사과 한 개를 샀어", you could say:

나는 사과 몇 개를 샀어 - I bought SOME apples

More examples (remember that 펜 한 개 and 한 개의 펜 have the same meaning):
나는 몇 개의 펜을 샀어 - I bought some pens
나는 몇 명의 사람을 만났어 - I met some people
나는 학교에 몇 번 - = I went to school a few/some times (not sometimes)
(remember, 번 acts as an adverb – so it doesn't need a particle to be attached to it).

Anyways, back to what I was trying to say earlier. ~들 can be attached to a noun to make that noun plural. However, adding ~들 to a noun that is not referring to a person is usually unnatural. Therefore, it would be unnatural to say something like this:

저는 사과들을 샀어요

Instead, ~들 is usually only attached to the word "person" (사람) or other words with the meaning of people (for example: actors, workers, doctors, etc...).

의사들은 돈이 많아 - doctors have a lot of money
선생님은 내일 학생들을 만날 거야 - The teacher will meet the students tomorrow
배우들은 그들의* 영화를 보통 좋아하지 않아 - actors usually don't like their movies
*By adding the possessive particle 의 to 그들 (them) it becomes 그들의 (their)