Learn how to ask someone questions that begin with the Korean word meaning "why"
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Keith: Why Are You Studying Korean? In this lesson, you will learn how to… |
| Misun: Ask why. 왜. |
| Keith: This conversation takes place… |
| Misun: At home. |
| Keith: Okay. And the conversation is between… |
| Misun: A daughter and her dad. |
| Keith: The daughter will be speaking formal Korean to her dad. |
| Misun: 네. 존댓말이요. |
| Keith: And the father will be speaking informal Korean to her daughter. |
| Misun: 반말이에요. |
| Keith: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| 딸 아빠… 왜 울어요? |
| 아빠 그냥. |
| 딸 왜 슬퍼요? |
| 아빠 그냥. |
| 딸 왜 자요? |
| 아빠 그냥… 왜? |
| 딸 그냥! |
| English Host: One more time with the English. |
| 딸 아빠… 왜 울어요? |
| Keith: Dad, why are you crying? |
| 아빠 그냥. |
| Keith: No reason. |
| 딸 왜 슬퍼요? |
| Keith: Why are you sad? |
| 아빠 그냥. |
| Keith: No reason. |
| 딸 왜 자요? |
| Keith: Why are you sleeping? |
| 아빠 그냥… 왜? |
| Keith: No reason...why? |
| 딸 그냥! |
| Keith: No reason! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Keith: Sounds like a very, very sensitive man. |
| Misun: Maybe he was watching a Korean drama or movie. |
| Keith: And those of course are very sad actually, the Korean ones. |
| Misun: That’s true. It’s a common theme when watching Korean dramas. |
| Keith: You mean men crying? That’s a common thing? |
| Misun: Maybe. |
| Keith: I'll be honest, I've teared before while watching a Korean drama. |
| Misun: Me, too. Believe it or not, Korean soap opera, or drama, movie, is really sad, right? |
| Keith: Yeah, yeah. |
| Misun: At some point. |
| Keith: Yeah. |
| Misun: They started with, like, a bright side and very, very funny and then… |
| Keith: Happy, in-love. |
| Misun: Happy. All of a sudden, they’re so sad, it makes the audience cry all the time. |
| Keith: Someone’s usually dead by the end of the series. |
| Misun: Why is that? 왜요? |
| Keith: Because they want you to cry. All right. Well, let's take a look at the vocabulary. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Misun: 왜 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Why. |
| Misun: 왜 [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 왜 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Next. |
| Misun 울다 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: To cry. |
| Misun 울다 [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 울다 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Next. |
| Misun: 그냥 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Just, simply, no reason. |
| Misun 그냥 [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 그냥 [natural native speed]. |
| Keith: Next. |
| Misun: 자다 [natural native speed]. |
| Keith: To sleep |
| Misun: 자다 [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 자다 [natural native speed]. |
| Keith: Next. |
| Misun: 슬프다 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: To be sad. |
| Misun 슬프다 [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 슬프다 [natural native speed]. |
| Keith: And next is… |
| Misun: 아빠 [natural native speed] |
| Keith: Dad, daddy. |
| Misun: 아빠 [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 아빠 [natural native speed]. |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Keith: All right. Well, let's have a closer look at the some of the words and phrases. |
| Misun: 네. The first word we look at is아빠. |
| Keith: Dad. Okay. Well, this word is pretty simple. |
| Misun: Yes, but we're going over it to cover some other variations here. |
| Keith: Sure. 아빠 is the most intimate, and it can mean "daddy." But you know what, in Korean, it’s not as childish. |
| Misun: You know, I can call him 아빠 in my age, right? |
| Keith: Yeah. But in English, if I say "daddy," it’s a little childish, but in Korean, yeah, it’s okay. |
| Misun: Yeah, that’s true. You can talk about your father to your co-workers and still call him 아빠. |
| Keith: So in English, if I call my dad “daddy”, everybody would be thinking I just graduated Kindergarten. And you know what, it's not even cool to say Daddy in Junior High school. |
| Misun: Right. But in Korean, it's not so embarrassing. It's okay to call your dad 아빠. |
| Keith: Right, so it's the equivalent of Daddy because it’s intimate, but not really embarrassing. What else is there, Misun? |
| Misun: Well, there's the more formal dad like 아버지. |
| Keith: Yeah. And this is used if your family is pretty formal and pretty traditional. |
| Misun: 네 맞아요. Yea. And also, if you did something wrong… |
| Keith: Right. If you want to say sorry to your parents, it's best to be as polite as possible. |
| Misun: That’s right. It’s so weird that I’ve been used to call him 아버지 instead of 아빠.I never call my dad 아빠. |
| Keith: So maybe it was a traditional family. |
| Misun: Maybe I’ve been so, you know, making some mistakes a lot all the time. |
| Keith: Well, that’s 아버지. But there’s also another one, is it there? |
| Misun: 네. It’s called 아버님. It’s the most formal one. |
| Keith: And this is SUPER traditional and super formal |
| Misun: Yes, it's pretty uncommon to hear someone calling their father 아버님 because it's so formal. |
| Keith: Yeah. But actually, I hear it often when other people are referring to someone's father. |
| Misun: That's true. You would be the most polite and respectful when you're referring to someone else's parents. |
| Keith: Okay. Well, let’s move on to our next word. |
| Misun: 좋아요. Our next word is 그냥. |
| Keith: Just because or no reason. |
| Misun: 그냥. This word is used to say “just that.” |
| Keith: So if someone asks you why you're doing something and you don't want to give a specific answer, you can just say... |
| Misun: 그냥. |
| Keith: For example, 미선 씨 왜 가요? Misun, why are you going? |
| Misun: 그냥. |
| Keith: It's great way to be ambiguous and non-specific. |
| Misun: That’s true. I don’t want to be reveal my secret. |
| Keith: She doesn’t like telling people. |
| Misun: Right? So I could say 그냥. Let's move onto the focus of this lesson. |
| Keith: Sure. |
Lesson focus |
| Misun: The focus of this lesson is the question word 왜. |
| Keith: And 왜 (wae) is translated as "why" in English. |
| Misun: Yup. It’s used in the same situations "why" is used in English. |
| Keith: It can also be used to find a specific reason or explanation for something, just like "why" in English. |
| Misun: In the context of this lesson, 왜 (wae) was followed by a verb. |
| Keith: Yes. In the dialog, the word 왜 was used to find out the reason for those actions. |
| Misun: And the basic structure that we'll be going over is pretty simple. |
| Keith: Yup. It's 왜 + a Verb. |
| Misun: And actually, you don't have to worry about the subjects in Korean. |
| Keith: Good point. Subjects in Korean can often be omitted. |
| Misun: Okay. Let’s take a look at some examples from this lesson. |
| Keith: First, the daughter was asking her dad why he was crying. |
| Misun: 아빠, 왜 울어요? |
| Keith: There we can see 왜 comes first, then the verb. |
| Misun: Right so it was 왜, then 울어요? |
| Keith: Literally, that’s “why cry.” How about another example? |
| Misun: 왜 슬퍼요? |
| Keith: Why are you sad? |
| Misun: Again, we have 왜, followed by 슬퍼요? |
| Keith: That's literally, “Why sad?” |
| Misun: 네. And finally, there was 왜 자요? |
| Keith: “Why are you sleeping?” Again, 왜 followed by a verb. |
| Misun: In this case, 자요. |
| Keith: “To sleep.” So basically, to use this, you just need to know a few verbs! |
| Misun: Exactly. To ask "why" question in Korean is very easy. |
| Keith: Okay. So let’s have one more example. Misun, how do we just ask “why?” |
| Misun: Simple, it's 왜요? |
| Keith: And that's being polite. If you're with some close friends, you can just drop 요 at the end. |
| Misun: 네. like 왜? |
| Keith: And that means the same thing, why? |
| Misun: Right. 왜? Even you have a long tail at the end, right? 왜~? |
Outro |
| Keith: All right. Well, that just about does it for today. Bye-bye! |
| Misun: 안녕히 계세요 여러분. |
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