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vox

Joined: 13 Feb 2005 Location: Jeollabukdo
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Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 6:55 pm Post subject: Korean grammar throwdown showdown |
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Okay
Burn the books, they are just so much shiat! Keep your convoluted painful incestuous endlessly self-referencing English explanations of Korean grammar that don't really work.
I'm laying it on the line here and NOW.
This is the way 은/는, 이/가, 을/를 really work.
Forget topic and subject. It's all a mishmash of thesis writers intending to please professors and thus as I stated above, self-referencing incestuous house of broken English explanations that get passed on without question. I DEFY you to show me an exception to the following. Defy, I say!
The real grammar deal:
은/는 is said to be the subject marker, but in fact it is only the marker of subjects in sentences that are about DESCRIBING that subject. It's nothing else. Nothing, I say!
이/가 is for everything that is not the above and not below.
을/를 is only for nouns that represent the direct transitive objects of verbs.
Go ahead. Prove me wrong. I dares ya.
Is my fortress of Korean grammar solitude not impenetrable? |
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ernie
Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Location: asdfghjk
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Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 7:41 pm Post subject: |
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i prefer to think of 은/는 as the contrastive marker, because it can be used with the subject or object of a sentence...
in english, we use stress for this function, which is why i think it's difficult to understand the korean way to do it... an example:
Kimchi is delicious. BONDAYGI is disgusting.
김치가 맛있어. 번대기는 맛없어.
I like kimchi. I hate BONDAYGI.
김지를 좋아해. 번대기는 싫어.
i'm no expert, so please clarify/correct the above... |
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The Perfect Cup of Coffee

Joined: 17 Jun 2007
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Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 9:16 pm Post subject: |
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Who cares?! Just feign stupidity and speak in mixed Korean-English. It's a lot more practical and the locals think it sounds cuter. The moment you start speaking like a local, you take on a whole lot more obligations in social situations. Simplify! |
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ernie
Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Location: asdfghjk
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Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 10:22 pm Post subject: |
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i agree with this advice ^ whole heartedly... being a foreigner means that you can feign ignorance in any sticky situation! take advantage of this whenever you can - no matter how good your korean is, they will pretend not to understand you when it suits them! |
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CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
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Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 11:07 pm Post subject: |
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ernie wrote: |
Kimchi is delicious.
김치가 맛있어.
I like kimchi.
김지를 좋아해. |
In the first sentence, 김지 is the subject. In the second sentence, 김지 is the object. The subject for the second sentence is understood. If it were not clear from the context what the actual subject for the second sentence is, the speaker would state the subject using the appropriate particle to indicate that. |
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vox

Joined: 13 Feb 2005 Location: Jeollabukdo
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Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 12:53 am Post subject: |
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ernie wrote: |
i agree with this advice ^ whole heartedly... being a foreigner means that you can feign ignorance in any sticky situation! take advantage of this whenever you can - no matter how good your korean is, they will pretend not to understand you when it suits them! |
No no no. This is not about negotiating with your contract signers. This is for everyone else - the sports clubs, choirs, arts enthusiasts, hotel accommodations, this is for all those people that can share Korea with you but you have to leave Seoul to do it.
And it's for people who want to get it right. If you're not interested in being correct, kindly move on. But this side-stepping the issue, well you might as well side-step the post itself. There are a hell of a lot of foreigners who live outside Seoul, hence get little or no English from the Koreans they encounter, and so it matters.
Thanks to those of you who had something to contribute! |
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ernie
Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Location: asdfghjk
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:57 am Post subject: |
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my point in my first post was to say that 은/는 is really for contrasting something with something else, like saying: "I didn't wear my blue shirt, I wore my BLACK(은/는) shirt."
saying that 은/는 is a subject marker is misleading because it can be used with objects as well, as in the above example... |
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CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 5:34 am Post subject: |
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ernie wrote: |
my point in my first post was to say that 은/는 is really for contrasting something with something else, like saying: "I didn't wear my blue shirt, I wore my BLACK(은/는) shirt."
saying that 은/는 is a subject marker is misleading because it can be used with objects as well, as in the above example... |
No, it isn't misleading. It's the way it is. You seem to be confused about what the object and subject are. Did you double-check your earlier example and did you not notice that you identified an object as a subject? |
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