Reading is one of the greatest ways to practice and improve your Korean. It helps with getting familiar with the letters and words so that next time you see them, your brain recognises them faster. The practices I include here are short text paragraphs with a breakdown of the words and sentences which will hopefully help you with your Korean.
저는 학교 다 끝나면 바로 집에 돌아와요. 저녁 먹고 나서 숙제를 해요. 그 다음엔 보통 드라마를 봐요. 한국 드라마 너무 재미있어요. 요즘엔 오징어 게임을 봐요. 그리고 화장을 지우고 11시쯤 잠을 자요.
Listening – slow version
Listening – normal version
Translation
Once school finishes, I go straight back home. After I eat dinner, I do my homework. After that, I usually watch drama. Korean drama is really interesting. These days I am watching Squid games. And I remove my make up and go to bed around 11 o’clock.
Vocabulary
- 저 – I
- 는 – topic marking particle
- 학교 – school
- 끝나다 – to finish
- 면 – if/when
- 바로 – straight away
- 집 – house
- 에 – location marking particle
- 돌아오다 – to return
- 저녁 – dinner
- 먹다 – to eat
- -고 나서 – after (doing a certain action)
- 숙제 – homework
- 를 – object marking particle
- 하다 – to do
- 그 – that’
- 다음 – after
- 에 – location marking particle
- 보통 – usually/normally
- 드라마 – drama
- 보다 – to see/to watch
- 한국 – Korean
- 너무 – very
- 재미있다 – to be interesting/to be fun
- 요즘 – these days
- 오징어 게임 – Squid Games
- 그리고 – and
- 화장 – make up
- 지우다 – remove
- 시 – hour
- 쯤 – around
- 잠 – sleep (noun)
- 자다 – to sleep
Sentence breakdown
저는 학교 다 끝나면 바로 집에 돌아와요.
This sentence translates to “Once school finishes I go straight home”. The sentence starts with 저는 since the topic of the sentence is me and so we add the topic marking particle. However, since “I” is also the subject of the sentence, we could say “제가 학교 다 끝나면 바로 집에 돌아와요”. Or, if we know from the context that the subject of the sentence is me, then we could omit the 저가 altogether and just say “학교 다 끝나면 바로 집에 돌아와요”. This sentence also uses the -면 connector which is very commonly used. It is attached to the verb without changing anything, we just need to drop 다. The verb stem is 끝나다, we remove 다 and add 면 and it becomes “when finishes/once finishes/if finishes”.
Few more examples would be;
- 도착하면 – once arrive/when arrive
- 보면 – when I see/once I see
- 가면 – when I go/once I go/if I go
You can guess from the context which representation fits the best.
도착하면 연락 할게요 – I will contact you once I arrive.
다 보면 말해 줄게요 – I will tell you when/once I see it.
가면 알려 줄게요 – I will let you know if I go.
As you can see, -면 connects two sentences together but both of the sentences do not make much sense without each other. So when you use -면, you want to use it to make a story really. Once something happens, another thing happens. Once something is done, another thing is done.
저녁 먹고나서 숙제를 해요.
This sentence translates to “After I eat dinner, I do my homework”. Here, we are using another connector -고 나서. This is used with action verbs only and describes an action that has been finished and is followed by another action.
The conjugation is the same as with the previous grammar rule. We remove 다, 먹다 –> 먹, and add 고 나서 –> 먹고 나서.
Few other examples are;
운동하고 나서 샤워를 해요 – After I finish exercising, I take a shower./After I exercise, I take a shower.
공부하고 나서 게임을 해요 – After I finish studying, I play games./After I study, I play games.
친구들 만나고 나서 집에 가요 – After I meet my friends, I go home.
그 다음엔 보통 드라마를 봐요.
This sentence translates to “After that, I usually watch dramas”. 그 다음에 translates to “after that” but notice how in Korean, the words are the other way around. We also add the location marking particle “에”. Sometimes, it is ok to drop it, but in this case, I think it would be quite unnatural to say 그 다음. The ㄴ here marks the topic marking particle. We are changing the topic of the conversation to what happens after the previous actions. You could say 그 다음에는 but oftentimes it gets shortened to 그 다음엔.
한국 드라마 너무 재미있어요.
This sentence translates to “Korean drama is very interesting”/”Korean drama is quite fun to watch”. There is no literal translation to English really since 재미 means “fun” and 있다 mean “it is”. Funny as in laughing funny would be 웃기다. So, it doesn’t mean its funny as in we laugh all the time, but it just means it’s fun to watch.
요즘엔 오징어 게임을 봐요.
This sentence translates to “These days I watch Squid Games”. Here, we have the 엔 again. In this case, the topic marking particle is used as a comparator. It gives the nuance of ‘Not sure about other times, but recently or these days I watch squid games’. It emphasizes the fact that I am watching it these days not necessarily other times. Topic marking particle is one of the hard concepts to grasp for Korean learners. Do not worry too much if you do not understand it yet. It will come with time. You can check out this post to learn about it more.
그리고 화장을 지우고 11시쯤 잠을 자요.
This sentence translates to “And I remove my make up and go to sleep around 11 o’clock”. 화장 is the object that is connected to the verb and so we add 를, the object marking particle. We have another connector in this sentence which is -고. It is added to the verb after removing 다 and combines two actions together. It literally just translates to “and”. It doesn’t give it any extra meaning, just describes two actions that are happening one after another.
Few more examples are;
눈이 오고 추워요 – It’s snowing and it’s cold.
요리하고 저녁 먹어요 – I cook and I eat dinner.