Dialogue

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Vocabulary (Review)

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Keith: Is Your Korean Class Easy? In this lesson, you will learn some classroom phrases. And so, this conversation takes place where?
Misun: In the halls of a university.
Keith: The conversation is between…
Misun: Two friends.
Keith: Okay, and they’ll be speaking formal Korean.
Misun: 존댓말.
Keith: Let’s listen to the conversation.
Misun: All right.

Lesson conversation
예원 수업 쉬워요?
제영 어려워요!
예원 교수님 쉬워요?
제영 어려워요! 박지성 교수님이에요.
예원 축구 수업이잖아요!
English Host: One more time, with the English.
예원 수업 쉬워요?
Keith: Is the class easy?
제영 어려워요!
Keith: It's hard!
예원 교수님 쉬워요?
Keith: Is the professor easy?
제영 어려워요! 박지성 교수님이에요.
Keith: He's hard! He's Professor Park Jiseong.
예원 축구 수업이잖아요!
Keith: It's a soccer class!
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Misun: Keith, you know who 박지성 is right?
Keith: Of course! Probably Korea's most famous soccer player!
Misun: 맞아요. He's a player for the Manchester United!
Keith: Right. And for those of you that don't know, that's a famous soccer or football team in England.
Misun: Of course! Not in Korea, but internationally, he’s really well-known.
Keith: Well, exactly. Yeah.
Misun: Right. And back in 2002, he was a national hero for being a leader on the Korean national soccer team.
Keith: Yeah. Before 2002 Korea wasn't on the international radar in terms of soccer.
Misun: But the 2002 national team brought the team to the semi-finals. Yes!
Keith: Right, that was in the World Cup. And he was, of course, one of the leaders of that team.
Misun: And now he's playing for one of the best soccer teams in the world.
Keith: And this is my personal opinion, but I think because Korea is such a small country, whenever someone makes it on the international stage, be it 박지성, 비, or 김연아, or Korean people get super excited, and they become a huge icon in Korea.
Misun: I know. That’s why 박지성 once actually became a model.
Keith: Not even that good-looking, though.
Misun: He’s not good-looking but he’s doing a model for some kind of cosmetic stuff.
Keith: Okay.
Misun: Or I’m not quite sure. But, you know, I saw him on TV and I was like, “Wow.” But he look really awesome now.
Keith: Yeah. Actually, you know what, all the people that I mentioned, 박지성, 비 and also김연아 I think they’ve all done modeling at some point.
Misun: Right. That’s true.
VOCAB LIST
Keith: All right. Well, ;let’s take a look at the vocab for this lesson. The first word is…
Misun: 어려워/어려워요 [natural native speed]
Keith: Hard; difficult (root verb is 어려우다: to be difficult)
Misun: 어려워/어려워요 [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 어려워/어려워요 [natural native speed]
Keith: Next is…
Misun: 쉬워/쉬워요 [natural native speed]
Keith: Easy, simple (root verb is 쉽다).
Misun: 쉬워/쉬워요 [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 쉬워/쉬워요 [natural native speed]
Keith: Next.
Misun: 수업 [natural native speed]
Keith: Class, lesson.
Misun: 수업 [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 수업 [natural native speed].
Keith: And finally…
Misun: 축구 [natural native speed]
Keith: Soccer.
Misun: 축구 [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 축구 [natural native speed].
KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES
Keith: Okay. Well, let’s have a closer look.
Misun: The first word we’ll look at is 수업.
Keith: Classroom. And I think this might be a useful word as we're going to learn some classroom vocabulary.
Misun: 네 맞아요.
Keith: So 수업 just means class. Let's give some useful subjects to our listeners.
Misun: Sure! How about what everyone is learning right now? 한국어
Keith: Korean.
Misun: So a Korean class would be 한국어 수업.
Keith: What about if we're learning English. What's an English class?
Misun: English is 영어 so it’s 영어수업.
Keith: Notice how all the subjects always come in front of the word 수업.
Misun: 네. I'll give you another class. How about science? Science is 과학 in Korean.
Keith: Okay, that's science. So science class would be?
Misun: 과학 수업.
Keith: And one more. What about good oldMath?
Misun: In Korean, that's 수학.
Keith: So Math class would be?
Misun: 수학 수업.
Keith: 저는 수학 수업 싫어요. I don’t like math class.
Misun: Oh, my god. 나도요. Me, neither.
Keith: It’s a bit difficult, even the older stuff.
Misun: Right.
Keith: I don’t know much is. I kind of forgot it. All right, Misun, anyway, let’s move onto our next word.
Misun: Sure. Our next word is 교수님.
Keith: Professor.
Misun: 네. And just like in English, it's important to make the distinction between 교수님 and 선생님.
Keith: Right. That’s professors like to be called professors, right? Not teachers. So what's the word for a teacher again?
Misun: 선생님.
Keith: And the word for a professor?
Misun: 교수님.
Keith: And if you notice, they both have 님 at the end.
Misun: 네. It's a respective way to call someone.
Keith: But when you're talking about a professor, should call them by their full name, as in how it came out in the dialogue? 박지성 교수님.
Misun: If you’re mentioned to the third person, then you definitely should say the name. But when you talk to directly to 교수님, then I wouldn’t say that way. Just say, 교수님 안녕하세요 or something like that.
Keith: If you’re talking to the professor, just call him “professor” but if you’re talking about the professor to someone else, you should use their name, plus “professor,” 교수님.
Misun: Right.
Keith: All right. Well, let’s move on to the focus of this lesson.

Lesson focus
Keith: The focus of this lesson is saying if something is easy or hard.
Misun: 어려워요!
Keith: "It's hard!"
Misun: 쉬워요!
Keith: "It's easy". And this lesson may be useful for those currently in school.
Misun: 네 맞아요. Or you can even refer to this lesson, saying it was easy or hard. So the word for easy is 쉬워요.
Keith: This comes from the verb 쉽다 (suipda), which means "to be easy."
Misun: The conjugation of this verb is irregular, so at this level, I would just suggest memorizing the conjugations, okay?
Keith: All right. So, for example, how do we say "it's easy" in a polite way?
Misun: 쉬워요
Keith: Okay. And that's in the standard politeness level.
Misun: It's polite, but very colloquial.
Keith: And there's also another polite version, but it's not as conversational as 쉬워요.
Misun: 네. That's 쉽습니다.
Keith: Actually, we don't recommend using this as it's too polite, and not very conversational.
Misun: That’s right. So instead, our listeners should say, 쉬워요.
Keith: What if we wanted to be a little informal? If we're talking to someone very close with us?
Misun: Yeah. Obviously, you just drop 요 at the end, then you can say 쉬워.
Keith: Exactly. Just drop that 요 at the end of 쉬워요, and you'll be informal. 쉬워.
Misun: And this is informal, but very colloquial, just like 쉬워요.
Keith: Okay, Misun, can we give some examples?
Misun: 네! How about 한국어가 쉬워요.
Keith: Korean is easy.
Misun: 네. Of course. The thing that's easy goes before 쉬워요.
Keith: So in this case, “Korean” is easy,” so it comes in front, right?
Misun: 네. Again, 한국어가 숴워요.
Keith: Korean is easy to, at least, us, but maybe some of our listeners may think it’s difficult. Misun: Do you think so..?
Keith: Well, just in case, what’s “difficult” if our listeners wanted to say something is difficult?
Misun: If it’s difficult, we say, 한국어가 어려워요!
Keith: “Korean is difficult.” And this is the second focus of this lesson.
Misun: 어려워요 comes from the verb, 어렵다.
Keith: And that means "to be difficult." Again, the conjugation of this verb is irregular, so again we recommend just memorizing the conjugations at this point.
Misun: You’re right. But don't worry, it's very similar to 쉬워요.
Keith: Okay. So how do we say it politely, “it's difficult.”
Misun: 어려워요.
Keith: And this is polite, but very colloquial, the standard politeness level.
Misun: And there's another one that's more formal. It's 어렵습니다.
Keith: Yeah, but again, this one is too formal, so it's not very conversational.
Misun: So we recommend using 어려워요. and 쉬어요.
Keith: And if we wanted to be informal, what can we say?
Misun: 어려워!
Keith: Right. Again, just drop 요 at the end of 어려워요 and it'll be informal.
Misun: So you can use that with people who are very close to you.
Keith: Okay. So let’s go over some examples.
Misun: Sure! If you're in class, you're not understanding what the teacher is teaching, you can say, 선생님... 어려워요!
Keith: Teacher, it's difficult!
Misun: Or, if you think Korean is difficult, you can say, 한국어 어려워요!
Keith: “Korean is difficult!” Okay, so how did it come out in this dialog?
Misun: First, a question was asked... 수업 쉬워요?
Keith: Is the class easy?
Misun: And the reply was... 어려워요!
Keith: It's hard!
Misun: Next, 교수님 쉬워요?
Keith: Is the professor easy?
Misun: 어려워요! 박지성 교수님이에요.
Keith: “He's hard! He's Professor Park Jiseong."
Misun: Well, that's it for this lesson.
Keith, what do you think? Is this lesson easy or hard?
Keith: Hmm... I would say 쉬워요! It’s easy. But then again, I got some experience speaking Korean. How about you, Misun? What did you think?
Misun: Well, to me, 너무 쉬워요.
Keith: Oh, you have a lot more experience than me.

Outro
Keith: Okay. Well, that just about does it for this lesson. Thanks for listening!
Misun: 안녕히 계세요 여러분 감사합니다.

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