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Reply To This To Ask Your Question Or Leave A Comment About Class #3

Hey,

This is the page where you can ask questions or read/listen to answers about class #3 where we learned about the verb, ‘to be’ – how to conjugate it into different levels of respect and use it as a statement or a question – and used it in our first second Korean sentence asking and answering, “What is it?” –> “It’s a __________.”

Same process as before. Just scroll down to the bottom of the page, reply to this post and ask away.

Remember, only members of www.learnkoreanonline.net are able to ask questions. If you’re not a member but would maybe like to be, click here (not yet clickable) to find out how you can test out the first 3 classes totally FREE – no obligation whatsoever.

Otherwise, cheers and I’ll see you soon in a video answering your question,

Rob…

P.S.  If you’re just starting your Korean-learning journey, I – and others – highly recommend you check out the box above for how to get your hands on “hands-down the best FREE gift any struggling beginner Korean-learner could hope for” – if there are still any left.  Cheers!

28 Responses to “Reply To This To Ask Your Question Or Leave A Comment About Class #3”
  1. Galinaros says:
    October 23, 2009 at 11:31 pm

    This question is a bit late, but anyhow… I’d still like confirmation. :)

    A little foolish to ask, but can you ask someone: “책은 뭐예요?” (What is a book?)
    Would that make sense to anyone?

    And, if so, would the answer be similar to this:
    “그것은 책 이에요.” [Supposing whoever you were asking held up a book.] (This is a book.)

    Thanks!
    Galinaros

  2. RobJ says:
    November 13, 2009 at 12:50 am

    Hey Galinaros, yeah, that would make total sense, meaning exactly “What is a book?” and in the context of, if you heard the word in a sentence and didn’t recognize it, and then asked that question.

    And the answer would be similar to that, yes. I say similar, ’cause as you go through the classes, you’ll notice that we’ll tend to drop a lot of the markers, so it might look something more like…
    “그거 책 이에요” (notice the subject marker is dropped, as well as the ‘ㅅ’ that was on the bottom of the second block in ‘그것’)

  3. ramon says:
    December 13, 2009 at 9:22 pm

    were links to class 4 sent out? thanks

  4. RobJ says:
    December 13, 2009 at 11:12 pm

    Hi Ramon,

    If you got a link to class #3, then yeah, class #4 should come out 5 days after that. Let me know if you can’t find it or didn’t get it, and I can email it to you.

    Cheers,

    Rob…

  5. John says:
    April 29, 2010 at 8:40 am

    Hi Rob,

    great class again. How would one go about asking someone to speak slower because you’re just a beginning learner of the language? Maybe during or just after the introduction, something like. “Hi, I’m John. Would you mind speaking slowly as I’m still new to the language?”, or is it just not done?

    Thanks
    John

  6. Esther says:
    September 13, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    hi Rob,
    Great Job!
    In your “What’s this?” pages for this class (#3) the question “What is this?” that follow by the answers: “It’s a beer glass” and “It’s a wine glass” is written 이것은 뭐에요 and not
    이것은 뭐예요 like the others. why?

  7. RobJ says:
    September 13, 2010 at 4:37 pm

    Ah, that could just be a typo actually. But really, the “~예요” is just short for ‘이에요”, so as long as your
    getting the sound right, it’s not that important. If you say 뭐에요? or 뭐예요? both quick enough, they
    basically sound the same. The ‘y’ sound in 예 is not really that prominent.

  8. Gap says:
    September 21, 2010 at 11:44 am

    Hi, Rob,

    I has watch class # 3 almost 3 hours. This class getting harder and have more vocabulary to remember.

    I have one question about “이에요” and “예요” .
    For example :

    It’s a hospital. (그것은) 병원 이에요.
    It’s a school. (그것은) 학교 예요.

    It’s bread. (그것은) 빵 이에요.
    It’s milk. (그것은) 우유 예요.

    Why some sentence use 이에요 and the other use 예요 ?
    Maybe I miss something in your video.

  9. RobJ says:
    September 21, 2010 at 12:03 pm

    Hi Gap, I’m pretty sure the explanation is in the videos somewhere, but it’s
    no worries, I can explain it here easily enough as well!

    “예요” is simply a shortened form of “이에요”. If you say them both really fast,
    you’ll notice that you end up saying basically the same thing.

    If you take a look at the sentences above (in your examples) using “예요”, you’ll
    see these words…

    학교
    우요

    Notice that both of those words end in vowels. And that’s simply it. The “예요”
    is simply a contraction of sound (from “이에요”) and used when the word before
    it ends in a vowel.

    If the word ends in a consonant, such as “병원” or “빵”, then we’ll simply use
    the full form of “이에요”.

    I hope that help, but if you still have some more questions about it, please
    ask.

    Happy Chuseok, Gap!

    Rob…

  10. Alexandra says:
    September 30, 2010 at 1:58 pm

    Hey, Rob!
    I love it! I understand absolutely everything! Thank you very very much!!
    I’d love to buy your courses, but I’m afraid i cannot do that now :( … Maybe someday. The point is that it will be much easier for me to learn korean in romanian (my language), it is sometimes difficult to translate from english to romanian and also to make perfect sens in korean…
    You’re doing great!!

  11. RobJ says:
    September 30, 2010 at 2:03 pm

    Hey Alexandra, that’s awesome to hear – thanks! And if
    I can help make that translation from English to Romanian
    to Korean any easier, I’ll try my best! Just let me know
    what I can do. But I gotta be honest, I don’t yet know a
    single word of Romanian…

  12. RobJ says:
    September 30, 2010 at 2:06 pm

    …and honestly, just going from Korean to English alone can
    sometimes be enough to do a person’s head in!

  13. Dalit says:
    October 18, 2010 at 9:28 am

    Hi Rob, I have a question about the “reading” of some sentences.
    1. 이것은 꽃입니다 (should be read as: 이거슨 꼬칩니다 ?)
    2. 이것은 집입니다 –> as : ~ 지빕니다 ?
    3. 나는 학생입니다 –> as : ~ 학샌김니다 (I didn’t know how
    to write the “ᄋ” here so I separate
    it to “ᄂ” and “ᄀ”)
    4. 이것들은 꽃들입니다–> as: 이거드른 꼬드립니다 ?
    5. 나는 경찰관입니다 –> as: ~ 경찰과닙니다?
    Ther reason I’m asking is because I’ve heard and audio example of how to read those sentences and it always had a pause between ” 꽃” (which he read as “kot”)and “입니다”.
    also between “집” and “입니다” and so on…
    and I got confused. can you clarify it for me please?
    Thank you very much.

  14. RobJ says:
    October 20, 2010 at 11:54 pm

    Hi Dalit,

    Yes, I would read all of those with the “flow” we talk about in the videos, so for example, “꽃입니다” can be read as “꼬칩니다”, and so on.

    It’s certainly not wrong to do it the other way and seperate them, but generally, when working on fluency (both reading and speaking), you’ll want to practice and stick to the “flow” thing we do.

    Hope that helps!

  15. Mayara says:
    October 25, 2010 at 8:07 pm

    Hey, Rob, I’m learning a lot, thanks for the great classes.
    .
    Just a quick curiosity. Why are the names 이 romanized as “Lee”?
    .
    Kiss

  16. RobJ says:
    October 25, 2010 at 9:21 pm

    Hey Maya, that is a great question and the answer is, I have no idea why it’s like that. In my opinion, it’s a complete bastardization (excuse my French) of the pronunciation, and it’s definitely not the only word (surname’s in particular) that this is true for.

    I actually wrote a post about that in more detail a long time ago. Check it out if you’d like…

    http://www.learnkoreanonline.net/other-stuff-korean/revamping-hangeul-written-korean-romanization-yesdo-it.html

    Hope that helps. And how are the classes coming along for you, Maya?

    Rob…

  17. Bob says:
    October 26, 2010 at 2:37 am

    Rob,

    Thanks for the great classes! I just came back to Korea for year 2 and decided to really buckle down with the language by taking this course.

    Up to lesson 5 has been mostly review for me but also filled in a lot of holes that were there from piecing things together myself when learning. Things like the differences between what is written and what is spoken are examples of what is just not explained in any of the Korean language books I used to learn from. Its so much simpler understanding those rules with your class.

    I look forward to my 5 days being up so I can start on the next lesson!
    -Bob

  18. RobJ says:
    October 26, 2010 at 2:45 am

    Hey Bob, that’s awesome! What part of Korea are you living in now? And let me know if there’s anything I can help with along the way.

    Cheers,

    Rob…

  19. Bob says:
    October 27, 2010 at 6:43 am

    I’m living in Ulsan now and I’m pumped that I know how to ask for and get more Kimchi at restaurants, ahaha.

    Can’t wait to get off work and start working on my next class!

  20. Katha says:
    February 4, 2011 at 11:54 am

    Hey
    I had finally time to do the 3rd class. I’m rally learning a lot!
    Thank you! The vids are really great!!

  21. Dem says:
    March 26, 2011 at 4:16 pm

    Hello Rob,
    I enjoyed Lesson 3, most of the questions I have in mind were answered here. I took 2 lessons today and I made a lot of notes already. I’ll take a few days break before lesson 4 so I could practice.

    Thanks again!

  22. Petr Masner says:
    March 28, 2011 at 6:02 am

    Dear Rob, maybe a stupid question, but how is it with the orthography in Korean? From your lessons (sorry, didn’t get too far now) I until now had the impression that Korean words can be written in several ways, as long as it sounds phonetically the same. But that’s probably a misunderstanding, no?
    Pete

  23. Julie Sim says:
    June 12, 2011 at 6:04 am

    Hi Rob,

    In the honorific conjugation of the verb to be, the “da” 다 is dropped and the “nida” or “niga” is added for statements and questions respectively. What is the meaning and purpose of the syllable “ni” 니 in this conjugation pls?

  24. RobJ says:
    June 12, 2011 at 6:07 am

    In all honesty, I don’t know. My best guess would be that there isn’t a specific meaning or purpose of that one syllable in that case. My advice would be just remember the ~ㅂ니다 as a structure all together and not worry about breaking it into individual pieces.

  25. Grace says:
    July 28, 2011 at 11:49 am

    This has nothing to do with Class 3 but for numbers when do you use hana, dool, saet and when do you use il, ee, sam?

  26. Rob says:
    August 1, 2011 at 9:50 am

    I would suggest not necessarily memorizing a list of when to use one system and when to use the other system, ’cause if you do that, down the road it can be confusing when trying to recall what you memorized.

    Rather, I would just learn the differences through experience, take it as it comes. For example, in class #4 we learned how to deal with money (and a few other things). Now you know that. In class number six, we learn the other system and it deals with age. Once you learn that, you’ll know it. I think learning that kind of stuff by experience (each different situation and which one uses which) is a much more effective approach.

    I hope that makes sense for you. Thanks Grace,

    Rob…

  27. Amani says:
    August 18, 2011 at 3:14 pm

    Hey Rob Seonsaengnim, not that this is a question, just a comment. Just wanted to let you know that I think you’re an awesome teacher and your lessons have helped me a whole lot, and I hope you keep it up. By the way, you know how the lessons are automatically emailed every 5 days, well could it be possible to get them like every 3 days or something? Thanks for all your effort, kamsahamnida!

  28. RobJ says:
    August 21, 2011 at 5:05 pm

    Hi Amani,

    Thanks a lot for the message! As for the classes, I’ll email you
    the links.

    Thanks again!

    Rob…

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