Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

여러분, 안녕하세요? 에이미에요. Hi, everybody! I’m Amy.
Welcome back to KoreanClass101.com’s 삼분 한국어, the fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Korean.
In the last lesson, we covered what to say when exchanging money. Today, we are going to learn how to express our own opinions using 좋아요 and 싫어요, which mean "I like it" and "I don’t like it,".
In English, we say "I like [something]" and "I don't like [something]." Liking is something you “do”. But in Korean, the pattern is a bit different.
여기는 날씨가 좋아요.
Literally, we are saying "The weather here is good."
여기는 is "here," 날씨가 is "weather is," and 좋아요 is "good."
We treat it like an adjective, so literally you’re saying that the weather is good, but this is understood to mean “I like” something in English.
If you don't like the weather
여기는 날씨가 싫어요.
means "The weather here is unpleasant."
싫어요 has a negative meaning but it is more like “I don’t like” instead of “bad” or “hate”
So 날씨가 싫어요 doesn't necessarily mean that it’s bad weather; it just means that you don't like that particular kind of weather.
For example, someone who sunburns easily might say 여기 날씨가 싫어요 in a beach town with year-round sun!
If you want to ask whether someone else likes something, you'll use 좋아요 as a question:
그 구두가 좋아요?
"Do you like those shoes?"
There is one other way we can say “I like” something, which behaves more similarly to English. It’s the difference between 좋아요 and 좋아해요.
Using the previous sentence pattern, we would say “This Kimchi is good.” 김치가 좋아요.
But if you want to say that you like kimchi in general, then you'll modify the phrase a bit:
김치를 좋아해요.
Kimchi is no longer the subject of the sentence; it's now the direct object. And the adjective 좋다 changed to the verb 좋아하다.
Many Korean adjectives, like 좋다, can be expanded into verbs by combining them with 하다. Doing this turns the adjective into a verb that shows how a person feels about the object.
So 좋아 means "This thing is good," but 좋아해 means "I like this kind of thing."
In the same way, 싫어 means "This thing is unpleasant," but 싫어해 means "I dislike this kind of thing."
좋아 and 싫어 express an opinion in the moment, while 좋아해 and 싫어해 express a trend.
If you want to ask about someone's general preference rather than his opinion in the moment, you can turn 좋아해 and 싫어해 into polite questions.
좋아하세요?
"Do you like it?"
싫어하세요?
"Do you dislike it?"
Now it’s time for Amy’s insights:
좋아 and 싫어 can be used in many more situations than just talking about your preference. You can say 좋아 to agree with someone's suggestion, and 싫어 to reject a suggestion or express discontent with a situation you're already in.
That's all for today! In this lesson we learned how to use 좋아요 and 싫어요 to say "I like it" and "I don’t like it." In the next lesson, we’ll cover how to give and receive directions.
I’ll be waiting for you in the next 삼분 한국어 lesson!
여러분, 안녕히 계세요! 다음에 봐요!

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