Mind Your Korean 10: Telling time – 아싸!

Orchid and Liz learn how to tell the time in class while Rooster whiles away time in Dreamland. They now share with you their adventures and misadventures with the Korean language in MYK 십!

Boy, I’d sure like to meet the person who cooked up the way to read time in Korean. Which smart @$S decided to use both pure Korean and Sino-Korean numbers to tell time?! Like life doesn’t already have enough challenges of its own.


The class we had was one of the toughest yet. My eyes started to glaze over and hunger pangs struck with a vengeance. I dunno, it must’ve been the doughnuts I ate, or it could be the side effects from digging into my last reserves of brainpower to digest the lesson. It was tough.

What time is it Mr. Wolf?

In Korean, you read the hour in pure Korean, while the minutes in Sino-Korean. And if it’s in the A.M. you go 오전 (o-jeon) and if it’s in the P.M., it’s 오후 (o-hoo).

Also, 시 = shi means hour, while 분 = boon means minutes.

Examples:

7.15am = 오전 일곱 시 십오 분이에요 = o-jeon il-gop shi, ship o boon-i-e-yo.

1.30pm = 오후 한 시 *반이에요 = o-hoo han shi, ban-i-e-yo.
*반 is like how Chinese tell the time. In Hokkien it’s “pua”, in Mandarin it’s “pan”, which means half of the hour.

5.40pm = 오후 다섯 시 사십 분이에요 = o-hoo da-seot shi, sa ship boon-i-e-yo.

Do you think you can tell me what 8.45am is?

Vocab

Here are some verbs that we used a lot in class:

• 공부해요 = gong-boo-hae-yo = to study
• 목욕해요 = mo-gyok-hae-yo = to take a bath
• 쇼핑해요 = syo-ping-hae-yo = to go shopping
• 숙제해요 = sook-je-hae-yo = to do homework
• 식사해요 = shik-sa-hae-yo = to have a meal
• 운동해요 = oon-dong-hae-yo = to exercise
• 일해요 = il-hae-yo = to work
• 전화해요 = jeon-hwa-hae-yo = to make a phone call
• 일어나요 = i-reo-na-yo = to get up

A day in life

Armed with that, you can actually relate – in Korean – what you did in a day. A brief example below:

저는 오전 여덟 시에 일어나요.
여덟 시 십오 분에 운동해요.
아홉 시에 아침 식사해요.
아홉 시 삼십오 분에 목욕해요.
열 시에 자요. ㅎㅎㅎ

Did you understand that? :-P

시험 – 아싸!

Earlier in the class, Teacher taught us how to use the word 아싸 (a-ssa), which is equivalent to the expression “Yesss!” when delighted or happy.

So let’s say you are a huge fan of F.T. Island and are excited to hear that the band will be in Malaysia for a concert. You can go: “아싸!”

And so the class tried out the new expression during the lesson…

Teacher: We have one more class to go before the exam. Exam in Korean is 시험 (shi-heom). There will be a written, oral and listening test. It will be on all the topics we have learned.
Fellow student: Oh…아싸!!
Teacher: No, no, I don’t think you want to say 아싸 when we talk about exams. You must be a very good student. Anyway, after the exam, why don’t we all go and have dinner together?
Fellow student: Ahh, 아싸!!
Teacher: Ha ha, yes, 아싸!

See you in the final class next week :-).

Learn Korean at home with Learn Korean Now

Mind Your Korean series:
MYK 1: I'm sorry (미안합니다) - You're welcome (아니에요)
MYK 2: The one where 선생님 beats Liz to the punch line
MYK 3: The tale of the uncooperative tissue paper
MYK 4: From learning the alphabets to self-introduction
MYK 5: Simple conversations in Korean
MYK 6: 하나, 둘, 셋, 넷...come on and count in Korean!
MYK Quiz 1: The Match Up
MYK Quiz 1: Answers and winner announcement
MYK 7: Location, location, location
MYK Tidbits
MYK 8: 일, 이, 삼, 사...come on and count in Sino-Korean!
MYK 9: Crunching large numbers and being formal

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