3.12 Time, Date, and Day — Epoché
What you will be able to do Ask and tell the time, taking the hour from one number system and the minute from the other: 몇 시예요? and 몇 시에 문을 열어요? Name the seven days and say that something happens on one of them: 화요일에 만나요. Give a date in the Korean order, which runs from the largest unit to the smallest: 10월 3일이다. Attach the time ending to a clock time, a day and a date, and leave it off the words for today, tomorrow and yesterday, which is the rule learners break most often. Use the four parts of the day and the three meals that go with them: 좋은 아침이에요, 여러분. and 우리는 저녁을 먹고 있어요. Prerequisites : 3.11, both number systems. You cannot tell the time in Korean with only one of them, because the hour and the minute come from different systems, and that is the first thing this lesson demonstrates. The time ending is the one from 3.3 Grammar , doing the third of its three jobs. Nothing in this lesson is new grammar. The time ending was taught in lesson 3.3, the numbers in 3.11, the copula in 3.5, and what remains is a set of words and the habits that go with them. It is nevertheless one of the most useful lessons in the volume, because arranging to meet somebody is the first thing a learner actually has to do in Korean, and it cannot be done without the clock, the week and the ending that fixes a point in time. The pattern The clock. The hour takes a native number and the counter for hours; the minute takes a Sino-Korean number and the counter for minutes. A Korean giving the time changes number systems in the middle of the phrase without noticing, and a learner who has only learned one system will get half of every time wrong. Korean What is being asked English 몇 시예요? [1] the hour What time is it? 몇 시에 문을 열어요? [2] the hour, with the time ending What time do you open? 몇 시에 문을 닫아요? [3] the same What time do you close? 몇 시에 떠나요? [4] the same What time are you leaving? 몇 시에 외출해요? [5] the same What time are you leaving? The first of these has no time ending because the hour is what the sentence is about; the other four have it because the hour is when something happens. That difference is the whole of the ending's job, and it is the same job it did for places in lesson 3.3. The week. The seven days are built on a single element meaning "day of the week", preceded by one of seven elements taken from the classical names of the sun, the moon and the five visible planets. The result is that all seven names rhyme and differ in one syllable, which makes them easy to learn and easy to confuse. Korean Day English 오늘은 월요일이다. [6] Monday, from the moon Today is Monday. 화요일에 만나요. [7] Tuesday, from fire Let's meet on Tuesday. 오늘은 금요일이다. [8] Friday, from metal Today is Friday. 오늘은 일요일이다. [9] Sunday, from the sun Today is Sunday. 어제는 일요일이었다. [10] the same, in the past It was Sunday yesterday. Four of those five are quoted in the plain written style rather than the polite style of this phase, because that is the style in which the corpus records them. Read them; do not say them at this level. Notice that 화요일에 만나요. , the one sentence in the polite style, is also the one with the time ending, because it is the only one where the day is when something happens rather than what the sentence is about. The calendar. Months are the Sino-Korean numbers one to twelve with a counter meaning "month", so the names of the months are not words to learn at all: if you can count, you can name them. Days of the month are the same numbers with a different counter. And the order runs from the largest unit to the smallest, which is the reverse of the British order and the same as the international standard. Korean How it is built English 10월 3일이다. [11] month then day It's October the third. 일년은 십이개월이다. [12] the counter for a span of months A year has twelve months. 8년 전에 결혼했어요. [13] years, with the word for "ago" I got married 8 years ago. 저는 7년 동안 한국에서 살았어요. [14] years, with the word for "during" I lived in Korea for seven years. The parts of the day are four, and three of them give their names to the three meals, which is worth knowing because it halves the vocabulary. Korean Part of the day English 좋은 아침이에요, 여러분. [15] morning Good morning, everybody. 점심 시간이다. [16] midday, and the midday meal It's lunch time. 오늘 오후는 한가합니다. [17] afternoon I'm free all afternoon today. 우리는 저녁을 먹고 있어요. [18] evening, and the evening meal We're having dinner. 아직 저녁을 안 드셨나요? [19] the evening meal Have you eaten dinner yet? How This Differs from English The time ending is not used with the commonest time words. This is the rule learners break most often, and it is easy to state. Words that name an absolute time, such as today, tomorrow, yesterday and now, stand bare, with no ending at all. Words that name a position in a cycle, such as a clock time, a day of the week or a date, take the ending. There is no reason for the distinction that will help you; it simply is the rule. No ending With the ending 어제 뭐 했어요? [20] What did you do yesterday? 화요일에 만나요. [7] Let's meet on Tuesday. 내일 전화하세요 [21] Call me tomorrow. 몇 시에 떠나요? [4] What time are you leaving? 지금 가요. [22] I am coming. 몇 시에 문을 열어요? [2] What time do you open? 오늘 기분이 너무 안 좋아요. [23] I feel so bad today. 8년 전에 결혼했어요. [13] I got married 8 years ago. English has a comparable rule and nobody notices it: you say "on Tuesday" and "at five" but not "on today". The difference is that the English version is about prepositions that are separate words, and the Korean version is about an ending that vanishes without trace when it is not wanted. Time expressions go early, not late. English puts them at the end: I got married eight years ago . Korean puts them near the front, because everything that is not the verb comes before the verb and the general precedes the specific. In 8년 전에 결혼했어요. the time is first and the marrying last; in 오늘 기분이 너무 안 좋아요. the day is first. An English speaker who puts the time at the end has not made an error exactly, since word order before the verb is free, but has emphasised the time in a w