The Difference Between Korean And English

Come on, let’s embark on a journey to study Korean together!

Learning a new language requires an immense amount of patience! This is because you need to familiarize yourself with their customs, culture, and more. Therefore, there are no shortcuts or quick ways to learn!

If you really want to learn quickly, you must study Korean with patience and perseverance!

Trust me, If you have that patience and learn Korean, I can assure you that you will get the value you deserve.

What could be the differences between Korean and English?

You might have heard something like this before.

For example, when you speak a sentence in English, what determines its parts of speech? Here is an English sentence.

“I like you”

Subject(I), verb(like), object(you)

Now, let me change it like this.

“I you like”

Do you think this makes sense?

Of course not. Then why doesn’t it make sense? The reason is that, in English, parts of speech are determined by their position. For example,

In the sentence

“He is a student like you,”

is ‘like’ a verb? No, it’s a preposition. What this tells us is that, in English, the part of speech is determined by its position. I want to call English a positional language here!

On the other hand, how about Korean? Let me write the above “I like you” in Korean.

“나는 너를 좋아해”

There are several ways to express this, but I’ll use this as a representative example.

Now, when you look here,

the order is

“나는 너를 좋아해” Subject, object, verb.

Then, what if I change it like this?

“너를(object) 좋아해(verb) 나는(subject)”

Is it wrong?

Should we ask Korean people? No one would say this is wrong(Of course, I am also Korean). Foreigners who have already learned Korean might ask me, “When I was learning Korean, I was taught to write in the order of ‘subject, object, verb.’ Is this wrong?”

To be precise, it is ‘generally’ used in that way. However, it is not wrong if the order changes. This creates a different feeling.

So why is it not wrong? What is different in Korean from English?

It’s because there is something called a ‘particle (or marker).’ What is it? Particles help create Korean sentences.

Ex:

나’는’ 너’를’ 좋아해.

Here, ‘는’ creates the subject, and ‘를’ creates the object. That’s why there is no problem even if the order is changed. For example, if you watched K-drama, you might have heard lines like this:

“좋아합니다… 많이… 혜선씨…” = (I like you… a lot… Hyesun…)

It’s a cringeworthy phrase. So why change the order?

It’s because it creates a difference in feeling! Simply,

혜선씨를 많이 좋아합니다.

It sounds very stiff, like a robot. So, when we have conversations, we change the order like that to create a different feeling.

Now, what should you do from the perspective of those learning Korean? If some books or places where you learned Korean told you to create sentences in the order of ‘subject, object, verb,’ should you do that? From the standpoint of ‘Korean education,’ I recommend that you first practice creating sentences by setting that principle. However, knowing the part I mentioned earlier and creating sentences without knowing it are entirely different things.

So, what should you learn? You need to learn Korean particles!

Let’s start a fun journey with me!