LEARN KOREAN (한국어) [GRAMMAR] #1

BEING SICK IN KOREA

One of the things people often try to learn first when learning a new language is how to express themselves in the event that they have to go to the doctor. This is something that wouldn't fit into any specific lesson, so I want to cover it here:

You already know the word 아프다, which you can use to indicate that you are sick OR sore in some place. In English "sore" and "sick" mean slightly different things. Because of this, Korean people (who are learning English) often mistakenly say "My arm is sick." Also note that 아프다 is an adjective... and for some reason '이/가' are used instead of 는/은 when creating sentences about a place on your body:

배가 아파요 - My stomach is sore
팔이 아파요 - My arm is sore
저는 어제 너무 아팠어요 - I was very sick yesterday

Also, you can use the word 걸리다 to indicate that you have some sort of disease/sickness. You learned a little bit about 걸리다. This usage of 걸리다 essentially has the same meaning that was described in all the other examples of 걸리다 (I am caught in a sickness). Korean people use this in the following way:

저는 감기에 걸렸어요 - I caught a cold/I have a cold
저는 독감에 걸렸어요 - I caught the flu/I have the flu
Notice how "에" is used in these sentences due to 걸리다 having the nuance of being stuck IN something

Also note that even though you have a cold in the present tense, Korean people use the past "걸렸다" to express that they currently have a cold.

기침 (a cough) and 재채기 (a sneeze), although not originally nouns of Chinese origin, are both nouns where you can add 하다 to get the respective verb form (to cough and to sneeze). For example:

저의 아들은 시끄럽게 기침했어요 - My son coughed loudly
(Probably more naturally translated to "My son was coughing loudly." Korean people don't really distinguish between simple and progressive past tenses as much as we do in English.)