(Textbook exercise) "She expresses herself well in writ

[carsont]

I've been slowly working through the exercises in my textbook ("College Korean", published by UC Berkeley), and this is the first one I've had major problems trying to answer:

"She expresses herself well in writing."
(the exercise being to translate the above into Korean)

This is on page 183, in lesson 16, for anyone who has the same book.

What I ended up writing down was:

그사람은 쓰기로 잘 표현헤요

... but I think that's almost certainly wrong. I used 로 because I remember having read somewhere that it's used to express the same meaning as "with" or "using" in addition to "to" or "through", but since I can't find any mention of such a meaning in the book or in the grammar reference here, I think I'm mistaken.

I could mimic a structure used in a few examples in the same lesson to get:

그사람은 쓰기가 표현하기에 촣아요

... but my impression is that this would mean something more like "Writing is a good way for her to express herself", which wouldn't be quite the same thing.

Could anyone point me in the right direction?

[manyakumi]

I think you did quite well.
It's not so bad as much as you mentioned.

I'd give you a suggestion.

She expresses herself well in writing.
> 그녀는 (글)쓰기로 자신을 잘 표현해요.
> 그녀는 (글)쓰기로 자신의 표현을 잘해요.
> 그녀는 (글)쓰는 것으로 자신을 잘 표현해요.
> 그녀는 (글)쓰는 것으로 자신의 표현을 잘해요.
also,
> 그녀는 (글)쓰기에서 자기 표현이 잘 돼요.

Hope this helps.

[carsont]

Thanks!

I didn't know about "자신" or "자기" at all, and had assumed that the "herself" would be implied without needing any sort of reflexive pronoun. What's the difference between them? My dictionary gives them fairly similar sets of example sentences, though it has many more examples of expressions using 자기 than 자신, so perhaps the former is more common?

Thanks again.

[manyakumi]

Yeah, they have very similar meanings so it's hard to explain the difference.
People even say '자기자신' for themselves.

I guess that it's like...

자기 : self_
자기표현 self-expression

자신 : _self
자신의 표현 expression of oneself


Make sense?
자기 has the meaning of the third person more, however.

[carsont]

Make sense?
자기 has the meaning of the third person more, however.

I think so... thanks!