Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Seol: 안녕하세요. 윤설입니다.
Minkyong: 안녕하세요. 민경입니다.
Keith: Hey Keith here. The Law Student Part 1.
Seol: So we have another series here.
Keith: Yes.
Minkyong: It’s the story about a student and a teacher and the student is very, very lost.
Seol: He is lost?
Minkyong: Yeah he just doesn’t go to school.
Keith: So this is a three-part series focusing on the Korean version of because. Now in Korean, there is several versions of this and one of them comes out in this conversation. What comes out?
Seol: 기 때문에
Keith: Because of and there is a couple of other ones too but they have different nuances and we want to show them to you because we want to show the different nuances between these because ofs. So what’s going on in this conversation?
Minkyong: The teacher is calling 유근 to see why he didn’t come to school for two days.
Keith: And because this is between a teacher and a student, what kind of language are they going to be using?
Seol: Teacher is talking to him in 반말.
Keith: Casual language also known as the intimate politeness level.
Seol: But the student is answering him in 존댓말.
Keith: Polite language and in this case, standard politeness level. So let’s see what happened?
DIALOGUE
선생님: (전화중)유근아, 오늘 왜 학교 안 왔어?
유근: 오늘 비가 왔기 때문에 못 갔어요.
선생님: 그래? 그러면 어제는 왜 학교 안 왔어?
유근: 어제는 추웠기 때문에 못 갔어요.
선생님: 휴..그러면 내일은 꼭 학교 와.
유근: 네.
Minkyong: 영어로 한 번 더
선생님: (전화중)유근아, 오늘 왜 학교 안 왔어?
Keith: Yugeun, why didn't you come to school today?
유근: 오늘 비가 왔기 때문에 못 갔어요.
Keith: It was raining today, so I couldn't go.
선생님: 그래? 그러면 어제는 왜 학교 안 왔어?
Keith: Yeah, then why didn't you come yesterday?
유근: 어제는 추웠기 때문에 못 갔어요.
Keith: It was cold yesterday, so I couldn't go.
선생님: 휴..그러면 내일은 꼭 학교 와.
Keith: Ok then. You better come tomorrow!
유근: 네.
Keith: All right.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Keith: Would teachers in Korea do something like this, call up their students if they didn’t come to school to see what’s up?
Seol: Yeah they do.
Keith: Even for two days?
Seol: Sure they have to.
Keith: It is part of their job and one thing that’s different with Korean teachers is that they are very involved.
Seol: Yeah my teacher was just like him here in this conversation. I remember that I skipped one class and he just called my mom that I skipped a class. 제가 수업에 딱 한 번 빠졌어요. It was just one. 딱 한 번. But he just called my mom. 그런데 선생님이 저희 엄마한테 전화했어요.
Minkyong: I guess teachers get very worried if you don’t come to school. Maybe.
Seol: Maybe and maybe not.
Minkyong: Maybe not.
Keith: So a lot of times the teachers will go to
Seol: Student’s house?
Keith: Yeah and like talk about their future and how you can do better in school.
Seol: Yeah I have the same experience.
Keith: Oh wait! So you didn’t do so well in school.
Seol: No maybe my homeroom teacher liked me so much and he cared about me a lot. So that’s the reason that he just visited my house and talked with my parents about my future and my school life. I am not so sure about it.
Keith: You are not so sure. We are bringing a lot of things from Seol’s past back up into present. All right well before we move on to the vocabulary, I want to remind our listeners to stop by KoreanClass101.com and there you can find vocabulary flashcards. There is a reason why everybody has used flashcards at one point in their lives. Have you?
Minkyong: Yeah sure of course I did. It was really good.
Keith: Yeah everybody uses flashcards because bottom line they work. So we have online flashcards at KoreanClass101.com that you can use to practice your Korean. All right, let’s move on to the vocab.
VOCAB LIST
Keith: First word we have is
Minkyong: 학교
Keith: School.
Minkyong: 학교 [slowly - broken down by syllable] 학교 [natural native speed]
Keith: Next we have
Minkyong: 비
Keith: Rain.
Minkyong: 비 [slowly - broken down by syllable] 비 [natural native speed]
Keith: After that we have
Minkyong: 오늘
Keith: Today.
Minkyong: 오늘 [slowly - broken down by syllable] 오늘 [natural native speed]
Keith: Next we have
Minkyong: 어제
Keith: Yesterday.
Minkyong: 어제 [slowly - broken down by syllable] 어제 [natural native speed]
Keith: And now we have
Minkyong: 내일
Keith: Tomorrow.
Minkyong: 내일 [slowly - broken down by syllable] 내일 [natural native speed]
Keith: And next
Minkyong: 꼭
Keith: Certainly, for sure.
Minkyong: 꼭 [slowly - broken down by syllable] 꼭 [natural native speed]
Keith: And 마지막으로
Minkyong: 춥다
Keith: To be cold.
Minkyong: 춥다 [slowly - broken down by syllable] 춥다 [natural native speed]
VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE
Keith: All right. We had three days in our vocabulary. What were they?
Seol: 어제, 오늘, 내일
Keith: Yesterday, today and tomorrow, fairly simple but let’s give them something extra. What’s yesterday?
Seol: 어제
Keith: What’s the day before yesterday?
Seol: 그제
Keith: What’s the day before yesterday before yesterday?
Seol: 그그제 Keep on doing this.
Keith: Okay what’s the day before yesterday before yesterday before yesterday?
Seol: 그그그그제?
Keith: And it gets a little confusing after a while but yeah you can keep on going. Nobody really does that though but the day before yesterday is?
Seol: 그...그제?
Keith: We are going to keep that in there.
Seol: No it’s 그제.
Keith: All right. So what about tomorrow? What do we have?
Minkyong: 내일
Keith: And what about the day after tomorrow?
Minkyong: 모레
Keith: What about the day after tomorrow after tomorrow?
Minkyong: I know the answer.
Seol: 모모레?
Minkyong: 3일 후에
Keith: Three days after?
Seol: Yeah.
Keith: Works on a different system. All right and beside the day, I also want to talk about the word
Seol: 꼭
Keith: Certainly, for sure. Now how did it come out in this conversation?
Minkyong: 내일은 꼭 학교에 와.
Keith: Let’s break it down really quick.
Minkyong: 내일은
Keith: Tomorrow.
Minkyong: 꼭
Keith: Certainly, for sure.
Minkyong: 학교 와.
Keith: Come to school. Tomorrow certainly come to school. Now in this context, it’s used you better come to school.
Seol: Yeah I get the nuance.
Keith: So in Korean, does it have the same nuance. You better come or else you are in trouble.
Seol: Well just a part like yeah if he does not go to school tomorrow again, then he would be in trouble definitely but here I just feel like you know, it’s his duty, it’s his responsibility that he has to go to school.
Keith: You must come.
Seol: Yeah.
Mikyong: Yeah it’s not necessarily that you are going to be in trouble but it means come to school like you have to, you must come to school.
Keith: So it’s kind of like you better come to school without the or else part.
Mikyong: Yeah 맞아요.
Keith: It still kind of has a nuance like…
Mikyong: Kind of….
Keith: Kind of but you must, you certainly, you definitely, you should come to school. So what other examples can we give some of our listeners?
Mikyong: 아침밥 꼭 먹어.
Keith: You should eat breakfast but that 꼭 in there is like
Mikyong: You must eat your breakfast.
Seol: So the person who said this to you must be like really worried about you and your health right?
Minkyong: Yeah.
Seol: Mom’s say that.
Keith: Moms, maybe like your husband, your wife or something, your boyfriend, your girlfriend
Minkyong: Or doctor.
Keith: Doctor Right. You definitely should eat breakfast.
Seol: I sometimes hear these from my friend 집에 가면 꼭 전화 해.
Keith: If you go home, you better call me. Well not better….
Seol: In this time, please give me a call.
Keith: But it’s like definitely give me a call.
Seol: Yeah.
Keith: Call me for sure. So that 꼭 in this conversation, it has that nuance of you are going to be in trouble. You must come but in this example, when you go home, you must call me. It’s like definitely call me. Call me for sure. It’s more like make sure you do this. Make sure you do that.
Minkyong: 네 맞아요.
Keith: So let’s give an example for some of our listeners. 꼭 뭐 해야 돼요?
Minkyong: 꼭 코멘트 남겨야 돼요.
Keith: Oh you must leave a comment. Make sure you leave a comment.
Seol: Or else, you’d be in trouble.
Keith: No we don’t have that nuance okay. 설 선생님? All right let’s move on to the grammar.

Lesson focus

Keith: What do we have in this conversation?
Minkyong: 기 때문에
Keith: And this is translated as, "so", "therefore", "because". Now in this conversation, how did it come out? Yoo-gun didn't come to school. Why didn't he come to school?
Seol: 비가 왔기 때문에
Keith: Because it rained.
Seol: 비가 왔기 때문에 못 갔어요.
Keith: Because it rained, he couldn't go to school.
Minkyong: It also came out as 어제는 추웠기 때문에 못 갔어요.
Keith: Because it was cold yesterday, I couldn't go. Now let's go over the construction of this really quick. What do you do?
Seol: It's simple to make this phrase. All we need is just verb stem and 기 때문에.
Keith: That's right. Very simple. In this conversation, Yoo-gun, he's not so good at taking the cold, so "because it was cold, I couldn't go to school."
Seol: 춥기 때문에 못 갔어요.
Keith: So the verb there we have is?
Seol: 춥다
Keith: To be cold. Verb stem?
Seol: 춥
Keith: Then we add?
Seol: 기 때문에
Keith: And some of you may remember from some of our previous lessons that 춥기 is also a verb nominalization. That's why we said that 기 is very important. So 춥기 때문에. "Because it's cold." Then you need a clause to finish that up. That second clause, so 춥기 때문에, in this conversation.
Minkyong: 못 갔어.
Keith: I couldn't go. How about yourself? 춥기 때문에?
Seol: 감기 걸렸어.
Keith: I caught a cold. 춥기 때문에?
Minkyong: 겨울이 싫어.
Keith: I don't like winter. Let's go over the other example in this conversation, because it's pretty interesting. What do we got?
Seol: 비가 왔기 때문에 못 갔어요.
Keith: You forgot that 요. You're not so polite to the teacher.
Seol: Ok. 비가 왔기 때문에 못 갔어요.
Keith: 존댓말 써야죠.
Minkyong: 네
Keith: So what do we have? We have?
Minkyong: 왔기 때문에
Keith: Now this one's interesting because it's in the past tense. So what do we have? What's the original verb?
Minkyong: 비가 오다
Keith: To come. 오다. And what's the verb stem?
Minkyong: 오
Keith: We need that past tense infix in there. So what is that? 오
Minkyong: 오았
Keith: Yeah, that 오았 in there is the past tense infix. So we combine those two together because of the contraction, and what do we got?
Minkyong: 왔
Keith: From there, that's where the actual verb stem is. We add on our construction.
Minkyong: 기 때문에
Keith: Because it rained.
Minkyong: 비가 왔기 때문에
Keith: Because it rained. So how about yourself? 비가 왔기 때문에?
Seol: 비가 왔기 때문에 우산을 샀어.
Keith: Because it rained, I bought an umbrella. I think all of us have experienced this. I hate carrying umbrellas.
Seol: 집에 가면 우산 많죠?
Keith: Yeah. There are so many. Like six, seven umbrellas. Like, "Ah man." All right. How about yourself? 비가 왔기 때문에?
Minkyong: 짜증이 나.
Seol: That's so Minkyong.
Keith: What's that word?
Seol: 짜증이 나다.
Keith: Now this is a difficult word to kind of translate. "To get annoyed" pretty much, but I guess we should have a lesson on this in the future. Right?
Minkyong: 짜증나.
Keith: Yeah, because you use this all the time.
Minkyong: I think it's one of my favorite words. 짜증나.
Keith: Because you get annoyed easily? Is that why?
Minkyong: No.
Keith: Before we wrap up, I also want to point out a pronunciation change sometimes in spoken Korean. What else do you hear instead of just 기 때문에?
Minkyong: 때메
Keith: And this is the same thing, just a slight pronunciation change in conversation. So let's have those same examples in this dialogue.
Seol: 비가 왔기 때메 학교 못 갔어요.
Keith: Is there a difference between the politeness levels if you make it shorter? 때문에 and 때메? Are you being less polite?
Seol: Not really, but when you say 때메 instead of 때문에, I just feel like you're kind of a little young boy.
Minkyong: A young boy.
Seol: I don't know how to explain it, but I just feel like the person saying 때메 is not that mature.
Keith: Yeah. I agree. It's when you're speaking standard Korean, it's normal standard Korean, but when you're speaking shortened, abbreviated, and not so standard Korean, it sounds kind of slangy. Kind of.
Seol: 귀엽기도 해요.
Keith: It's kind of cute.
Seol: Yeah 민경이 때메 이러면 귀여워요.
Keith: 귀엽잖아요.
Seol: 네

Outro

Keith: All right. Well let’s wrap it up over here. So any final examples?
Seol: 저 있어요. Korean class 때문에 저 한국어 진짜 잘 해요.
Keith: Was your Korean worse before Korean class?
Seol: 네
Minkyong: KoreanClass101 때문에 행복해요.
Keith: 행복하죠.
Minkyong: 네
Keith: 그렇죠.
Minkyong: 네
Minkyong: 안녕히 계세요.

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