Your favorite professor at the university you attend in Korea has arranged for you to have an interview at a very prestigious Korean company. You have already had two interviews and they asked you to come in today for a final interview with the supervisor. You weren’t nervous until now, but your hands are shaking and you are a little queasy. You don’t just want the job, but you also want to make your professor proud. After a short wait, a small Korean woman walks in and greets you. She introduces herself in Korean as the CEO of the company. You shake her hand and introduce yourself as you both take your seats to begin the interview. The first thing she asks in Korean is what you have to offer their company…what are your abilities? As you begin to answer, you stutter and stumble because you cannot remember how to say “I can” or “I am able” in Korean. Well, even if you CAN she wouldn’t know now!
Learning Korean with KoreanClass101.com is the most fun and effective way to learn Korean! In this Korean Beginner lesson, you will learn how to talk about everything you can do, everything you are able to do, and everything there is even the possibility you can do in Korean! Then we will tell you what to expect at a Korean interview! Don’t forget to stop by KoreanClass101 to get more great Korean learning materials! Leave us a comment while you are there! We would love to hear from you!
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This entry was posted on Monday, April 21st, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Beginner Season 2 . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
45 Responses to “Beginner S2 #4 - Talk About Your Abilities: What Can You Do in Korea?”
Monday at 6:30 pm
여러분… 어느 나라 말을 할 수 있으세요?
(Everyone… what languages can you speak?)
Monday at 9:00 pm
영어랑,일본어랑,독일어를할수있어요 !
물론프랑스어도할수있어요;
독일어랑한국어랑러시아어를공부해요.
And I’m thinking of adding Italian too…
Monday at 9:27 pm
Mmmmm…. ummm…. 독어 할 수 있읍니다 but I’m only a student. And of course I speak English! 영어 할 수 있읍니다. Yay!
Monday at 9:31 pm
Plus, I’m a little bit of a mini linguist myself. Plus I learn 하와이어 as you’ll see in my intro video. And many other languages as well. Hyunwoo, you’re my hero!
Tuesday at 12:19 am
스페인어 (1st language), 영어 (2nd language)
-이탈리아어, 프랑스어 (3rd languages) i’m studying these languages again cuz i forgot a lot of things ^^.
Also currently Studying :
),
-한국어 (my favorite ^___^ and the one i’m putting all my effort in learning ^__^ and the one responsible for like abandoning the other languages ^^.
-독일어
-일본어
I will start studying soon :
, ok i know i must learn the stroke orders ^^, but also the pronunciation is kind of difficult ).
-중국어 ( i really don’t know how to start with this one cuz it seems really difficult ^^, like how do i start writing what it seems to me like scribbles
-아랍어 ( this one seems hard too ^^).
i also want to learn:
-러시아어, 터키어.
-포르투갈어 ( this one will be easy to learn cuz is very similar to spanish and without having studying it i understand a lot of things)
and many more languages ^^……
Tuesday at 4:21 am
My best foreign language is 프 랑 스 어. But when I speak it too long, my native 영 어 gets a little strange
Other languages I know, in various states of neglect:
스 페 인 어
일 본 어
아 랍 어
and one I don’t know how to say in Korean…Persian.
My favorites are (in no order), French, Korean and Persian. They are the most beautiful-sounding to me; they sound soft and refined. I like to think of Persian as the “French” of the Middle East, and Korean as the “French” of Asia, and French as…uh, the “French” of Europe
But if I had enough time, I would learn every language
Jacqueline: Arabic has very complex grammar, but I am sure you can handle it. The writing is beautiful and easy once you get the hang of it. Hope to see you at ArabicPod101.com
Tuesday at 5:50 am
I wish to start a petition for Peter and Co to put out a KlingonPod101 ….
Tuesday at 6:16 am
Bouks I notice you hit the space bar alot in your Korean typing, Actually you don’t need to do that the computer knows when to start a new “word”.
Tuesday at 6:59 am
Heh…I do that so I can check my typing easily, and then I forget to take the spaces out
I wish I could make the Korean font appear bigger on the screen without making the English font look gigantic. Could this be done from the site designer’s end, maybe?
Tuesday at 7:50 am
안녕하세요. NEWBIE입니다. 재 이름은 Jason입니다.
저는 미국 사람이에요. 영어 해요. 독일어도 프랑스도 할 수 있어요. 한국어 찰 못 해요. 하지만 배우고 싶어요.
But, how do you ask “What can’t you do?” can you say 뭘 할 수 없어요? If you were interviewing 윤석, could you ask “무슨 말 할 수 없어요?”
It’s nice to be here. I’m impressed with all the polyglots! I only have those 3 languages. I wanted to learn Japanese too, but Korean is definitely taking all my time and interest now.
If it is not too many questions, how can one best say “I really don’t speak Korean, only a few words” ?
고맙습니다. 만나서 반갑습니다.
Tuesday at 7:50 am
Petiteclaire - If I could, I would like to add to that request: a preteendaughterspeakpod101.com, just so I can be prepared in time
Tuesday at 10:09 am
제가 많이 외국어를 말했으면 좋겠어요! 지금 영어와 한국어 밖에 할 수 없지만 앞으로 스페인어 하고 중국어나 일본어도 배울 거예요.
Tuesday at 10:22 am
중국어도, 일번어도, 할스 있어.
And English of course!
Tuesday at 10:37 am
petiteclaire,
러시아어까지!! 그리고 이탈리아어는 쉽게 할 수 있지 않을까요? ^^ 프랑스어랑 많이 비슷한 것 같아요!
정말 대단해요
그런데 KlingonPod101은 무슨 뜻이에요? ^^
매튜!
정말 대단해요. 나중에 저도 가르쳐 주세요 ^^ And yes, we made sure we put in your intro in Hawaiian in the video!
하와이어 is amazing
Jaqueline
하지만 할 수 있어요!! 화이팅!!
우와 진짜 많아요! 중국어와 아랍어까지 공부하면, 정말 너무 너무 바빠지는 거 아니에요?
Tuesday at 10:43 am
Bouks,
그런데 100% 확실하지는 않아요 (I’m not 100% sure though) ㅎㅎ ^^ 한 번 해 보세요!
if you use firefox, I think you can change the font size for Korean letters only.
Jason,
지금도 잘 하고 있는 것 같아요!!
안녕하세요! 한국어 열심히 공부하세요~~
“What can’t you do?”는 “뭘 할 수 없어요?” 맞아요. or you can also ask “할 수 없는 게 뭐예요?”
And if you want to ask 윤석 “What language can’t you speak?” you can ask him “무슨 언어를 할 수 없어요?” or “할 수 없는 언어는 뭐예요?” (언어 means language)
And the answer for your last question
(questions are always welcome!!) is:
“I really don’t speak Korean, only a few words” = 한국어 진짜 못 해요. 단어 몇 개 밖에 몰라요.
I hope this helps!
Tuesday at 10:47 am
오스틴! 지금까지 한국어 공부하면서 했던 방법 그대로 공부하면 분!명!히! 어떤 언어라도 잘 할 수 있을 거야
화이팅! 그리고 네가 쓴 말은 문법적으로 정확하지만, 조금 더 자연스럽게 말하려면 이렇게 하면 돼.
Max
맥스 중국어 진짜 잘 해요!! 
저도 더 열심히 공부할 거예요~ 맥스 따라잡아야지 ^^;;;
Your Chinese is soooo good
Tuesday at 10:55 am
I’m surprised by how many languages every speaks!!
So many language lovers here 
Just a quick question to everyone: was Korean one of the easiest languages to learn? or at least Hangul!?
한국어랑 일본어는 빗하죠? Korean and Japanese are similar aren’t they? Actually, we were joking around that we should put out KlingonPod101.com and YodaPod101.com as well
독일어 할 수 있어요? 언제 공부 했어요?
How long did it take you to learn the Arabic writing system? I’d love to learn Arabic too!
스페인어 공부는 잘 되고 있어요? ㅎㅎ 스페인어는 오민한테 더 쉽겠죠? 영어랑 빗하니깐 ^^
중국어 아니깐 한국어는 더 쉬어요? (Is Korean easier because you know Chinese?)
환영합니다! (Welcome!) 미국에서 어디서 계셔요? (Where in America are you?) 앞으로 잘 부탁 드리겠습니다!
Tuesday at 11:13 am
Keith: I can’t remember how long it took me to learn Arabic writing, but not longer than it took me to write Korean. I had already studied Persian before starting Arabic, and they use practically the same alphabet. I remember thinking that the Persian way was easier because they have an alphabet song, and there is no song the kids sing in Arabic schools as far as I know. But don’t let that stop you, it’s a fascinating and rich language. And I’m around to help anytime
Tuesday at 11:39 am
Korean is alot easier than Spanish, I’m taking that now in school… and I’m not so good. Oh but I’m pretty good at English
Tuesday at 11:54 am
성주…(사실은 김일성의 태어날 때는 김성주로 라고 했고 일성으로 바뀌었은 걸 읽었어)
응.. 스페인어는 영어랑 꽤 비슷해서 빨리 배울 것을 기대해! 어렸을 때 라틴어와 프랑스어 공부했던 적이 있어서 head-start또 있거든!
Tuesday at 3:27 pm
Hyunwoo,
yes, Italian is pretty easy for french speakers, at least to understand. I’ve never studied it per se but when I listen to the audio blog at Italianpod101.com, I get 80-95% of the content, depending on how fast people speak. I think it’s much easier than Spanish. But so far I’m absolutely unable to put together a coherent sentence (except by using the well-known artifact of putting “o” or “a” at the end of any french word and hoping the meaning gets across…
)
Keith,
yes, Japanese and Korean are pretty similar… which is really a good thing , because knowing Japanese helps me a lot with the Korean. But it still isn’t that easy. The writing system is obviously easier than in Japanese, but I find Russian much easier than Korean.
Tuesday at 4:28 pm
okay i typed something just now and when i clicked submit it’s all gone!!!
우리나라에서 제1언어는 영어이여서 우리 다 영어를 할 수 있어요.
또 제2언어를 공부해야돼요. 싱가포르에서 인종은 여러가지가 있어서 우리 보통 모국어를 공부해요. 예를들어, 제 인종은 중국인이여서 중국어를 공부해요.
제3언어를 공부하는 사람도 있어요. 일본어, 한국어, 프랑스어, 스페인어, 톡일어, 등등 중에서 선택해도돼요. ㅋㅋㅋ
Tuesday at 7:19 pm
선현우 선생닠, 고맙습니다
Keith,
San Francisco 태어났어요. 지금은 Boston에서 살아요.
I think Korean is hard. My ears have to be trained to hear it, and because the word order is almost exactly opposite English I have to think differently!
Hangul was easy to learn, though.
Tuesday at 9:27 pm
네 키스, 중국어 아니깐 한국어는 더 쉬어요. 도 같아요. (there are places where they are the same).
Grammar is wildly different, but a lot of the vocab is the same. Or just the same except “Koreanified”. Like “important” in Chinese is zhòng yào but the Korean is 중요. “Misunderstanding” is 오해/wù huì. “Normal” which was mentioned in last week’s intermediate lesson is cháng in Chinese, 상 in Korean. Obviously you can’t hear me say the Chinese, but it’s so similar! If I said this vocab to a Korean person, they’d probably understand. Any Hanja word that involves two Hanja together probably has a direct equivalent in Chinese, and sounds really similar. That’s why I find the Hanja really helpful in my Korean studies.
Sounds like the same thing that petiteClaire goes through when she talks about the similarities in French/Italian!
Wednesday at 2:27 am
저는 영어하고 한국어할 수 있어요. 그리고 프랑스를 어떤 정도로 이해하지만 직접적으로 잘 못 하고 스페인어를 조금 밖에 못 해요.
Wednesday at 11:49 am
Wait so what cant you do Hyunwwo! Sounds like you can speak EVERY language there is!
Wednesday at 8:28 pm
Amberlee
앞으로도 화이팅!!
Glad to hear that Korean is a lot easier than Spanish for you!
Austin(오민)
I just found myself typing your name as “Aumin” and erased it… HAHA
Wednesday at 8:34 pm
petiteclaire,
But just like you pointed out, becoming really fluent in speaking in the other languages is another story, right? Hehe. Just recognizing some similar words can’t make anyone fluent immediately, so in a sense it might be a disadvantage too, I guess? Hehe.
Yeah I think Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French speakers can really take a big advantage of their languages being similar in vocabulary and some grammar
theresa,
Hope it won’t happen again!!
Too bad the comments are gone!!
싱가폴은 정말 인종이 다양해서, 영어가 없으면 서로 이야기하기 힘들 것 같아요 (인종이 다르면 언어도 다를 수 있으니까요). 하지만 테레사처럼, 제3언어를 공부하는 사람들이 많은 것은 정말 좋은 일이에요!! 한국도 이제 점점, 영어만 공부하는 대신에, 중국어, 프랑스어, 일본어, 스페인어 등등… 여러가지 외국어를 공부하는 사람들이 많이 있어요.
Wednesday at 8:46 pm
Max,
A big synergy if you study al three of them!
Yeah there are so much similarity between the Korean and the Chinese vocabulary. The words that came from the Chinese language have of course changed a lot as they came into Korean and Japanese, but you can still see the roots there, right? hehe
Jeff,
한국어를 배웠던 것처럼 다른 언어를 공부하시면 정말 빨리 배울 것 같아요! 
제프 씨는 한국어를 정말 잘 하시니까
Amberlee,
hehe. It’s just a lot of fun learning new languages 
And I have a million and one things I can’t do…. T.T
I can’t speak every language there is but surely one can aim for it… hehe. And I’m not *perfect* in the languages I speak, either (not even my English is far from being perfect and it’s my strongest foreign language). I gotta keep studying
Thursday at 11:36 am
배우고 싶은 외국어는 많은데요. 제가 배우고 싶은 언어 중에 하나는 러시아어예요. 어제 지하철에서 길을 잃은 것 같은 아저씨가 모든 사람에게 러시아어를 하냐고 물어 보니 제가 러시어로 인삿말 밖에 할 수 있었으면 좋았을 텐데요. 그 아저씨가 러시아어를 하는 사람을 못 찾아서 다음 역에서 그냥 내렸어요.
Thursday at 4:08 pm
Jeff,
그렇군요. 정말 저도 동감이에요! 가끔씩, 서울에서도, 영어도 한국어도 잘 못 하시는 분들이 길을 찾고 있을 때가 있는데, 러시아처럼 제가 아직 못 하는 언어일 경우에는 저도 굉장히 답답할 때가 있어요 ^^;; 궁극적으로는(!) 모든 언어를 할 수 있게 되면 좋을 텐데 말이죠! ^^
Friday at 5:43 pm
My 2nd attempt to post a comment.
It’s doubly frustrating cos the Hangul takes twice the effort to type!!
I’m still confused about the difference between ㄹ/을 수 없어요 and 못.
For example, if you have a tummy upset and can’t eat right now, do you say 먹을 수 없어요 or 못 먹어요?
Or if you are short of money and can’t go to the cinema?
Friday at 10:17 pm
Shan
The difference between -ㄹ/을 수 없어요 and 못 is not too obvious, but generally, you can consider the two the same thing, therefore interchangeable.
But 못 is much more casual and conversational than -ㄹ/을 수 없어요.
When you think about it, “수” in -ㄹ/을 수 없어요 means “a way” or “a method”, a 方法。
So -ㄹ/을 수 없어요 literally means “I don’t have any method to + Verb” so you can imagine that it’s naturally more formal than to just say “I can’t + Verb”
So I suggest using ‘못’ more often than -ㄹ 수 없습니다 in casual conversations,
but when you are in formal situations or talking about something that’s prohibited by law or regulations, please use -ㄹ 수 없습니다.
:-) I hope this helps!
Wednesday at 6:56 pm
[…] Beginner Season 2 Lesson #4 - What Can’t You Do? […]
Sunday at 6:56 am
I agreed with you
Monday at 11:50 am
This was a little more difficult than prevoius lesson. I find Korean fun and easier than other languages I have tried because I actually have a Korean friend who is willing to listen and try to help me- i.e. Master Kim JungHwan - I want to learn the language as opposed to just choosing French because you had to pick a language in highschool to graduate! Three years of French and I can’t speak a word! Three months of Korean and I can conjugate verbs!! gwenchanta!!
Tuesday at 12:35 pm
일본어 할 수 있어요. 프랑스어도 할 수 있어요.
Wednesday at 12:57 pm
하하하… 제 한국 이름은 이윤선이에요!
…저는… 남자의 이름이… 있어요…?
Wednesday at 1:20 pm
윤선 씨
이윤선이라는 이름은 여자이름이기도 하고, 남자이름이기도 해요 ^^ (it’s both a female and a male name hehe )
“저는 남자의 이름이 있어요” –> “제 이름은 남자 이름이에요?”
Wednesday at 9:43 pm
Great lesson
. But, in the PDF it says that -ㄹ 수 있다 can also be used with descriptive verbs. There are no examples though, so can someone give a useful example of this? I can only think of things that are either weird or should probably be said in another way in Korean..
Friday at 10:44 am
Jeroen
Here are some examples for -ㄹ 수 있다 being used with descriptive verbs.
춥다 (chupda) - to be cold
추울 수 있어요. = It can be cold.
비싸다 (bissada) - to be expensive.
비쌀 수 있어요. = It can/could be expensive.
Thursday at 5:37 pm
What is the difference between these two phrases?
Yeongeo Hal Su isseoyo?
&
Yeongeo Haseyo?
Thursday at 6:26 pm
Hello Clay,
between 할 수 있어요 “Yeongeo Hal Su isseoyo? and 이거 하세요 “haseyo”
할 수 있어요 Yeongeo Hal Su isseoyo?
meaning,
“Can you do it?”, “Can you do this?” 할 수 halsu “can you?”
하세요 haseyo
Meaning,
“Please do so”, “please do it”
If you see this word - 세 se - meaning “adding the level of politness” very formal.
I hope my answer helps you understand Korean.
best,
Tim
Friday at 6:22 am
Yeongeo Hal Su isseoyo? & Yeongeo Haseyo?
Both of them mean “Can you speak english” am i correct?
Friday at 6:02 pm
“Hello Clay,”
영어 yeongeo “English”
할 hal “Can”
수 있어요? su iteoyo? “do (speak)”
“Can you sepak English?”
영어 yeongeo “English”
하세요? haseyo? “do? (speak?)”
“Do you speak English?”
The difference is “CAN”!
cheers,
Tim
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