Comments on: Reply To This Post To Ask A Question About “Learn Korean Online” Class #7

By: Rob

Rob — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 15:06:25 +0000

Hi Julie,

아버님 and 아버지 are both formal ways to say “father”, however…

아버지 is reserved for someone who is very close to the person being called father. For example, if my wife wanted to call her father ‘father’ (in a respectful manner), she could say 아버지.

But if I wanted to call her father ‘father’ (in a respectful) manner, I would use 아버님 as I am not quite close enough to him to use 아버지. Does that make sense?

So if you were ever talking to your friend’s father and wanted to address him, you would address him as 아버님, a little bit more formal way.

Hope that helps!

By: Julie Sim

Julie Sim — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 08:35:53 +0000

Thanks, Rob, btw, could you confirm if ‘father’ is 아 버 님 or 아 버 지 pls? Both my dictionaries say 아 버 지.

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 12:46:30 +0000

Yes, that is correct. But you couldn’t use 인 on its own to refer to someone, whereas 사람 is the actual word for ‘person’.

Nice one, Julie…

By: Julie Sim

Julie Sim — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 06:54:17 +0000

For nationalities, I believe 인 is often used for ‘person’ instead of ‘사 람’, so American = 미 국 인. Is that correct?

By: Julie Sim

Julie Sim — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 06:44:29 +0000

Hi Rob,
Shouldn’t the word for ‘father’ be 아 버 지 and not 아 버 님? I’ve often heard the former but never the latter being used.

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 03:20:32 +0000

Hi Ahuva, good question (and one we’ll start to deal with around class #8)…

To conjugate into the ‘honorific’ level for a verb ending in a consonant, you first drop the ‘~다’ (as we almost always do when working with verbs), then add ‘~습니다’. Here are some examples…

있다 —> 있 + 습니다 = 있습니다
없다 —> 없 + 습니다 = 없습니다
먹다 —> 먹 + 습니다 = 먹습니다

The first two examples are the verbs we’ll start dealing with in class #8. The last example, 먹다, means ‘to eat’.

Hope that helps!

By: Ahuva

Ahuva — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 11:09:45 +0000

Hi Rob,
As you said, when we are conjugating a verb in the honorific level we have to see if it ends in a vowel or consonant, when it ends in a vowel we put the “ᄇ” under the vowel and add: 니다. what do we have to do when the verb ends in a consonant?
Thank you

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 05:46:27 +0000

Hi Ahuva, yeah, that’s not a big deal. You can definitely use either or for those levels. But you generally wouldn’t use 저는 if you dropped down to the ‘casual’ level.

Hope that helps!

Rob…

By: Ahuva

Ahuva — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 14:30:41 +0000

Hi Rob,
I have a question about the sentences:
저는 선생님이 아닙니다.
나는 간호사가 아니에요.
When I use “저는” do I have to use only the honorific level “아닙니다”? can I use “아니에요” if I want?
The same question with “나는” which is common level, can it be used also with the honorific level “아닙니다” ?
Thank you

By: John43

John43 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:13:36 +0000

I started to suck a little less anyway. ,