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 보통 아침에 7시에 일어나요. 아침에 일찍 일어나기 너무 힘들어요. 더 자고 싶어요. 일어나서 샤워하고 아침 먹어요. 그리고 화장 해요. 8시쯤에 집에서 나가요. 버스 타고 학교에 가요.
Listening – slow version
Listening – normal version
Translation
I usually wake up 7 o’clock in the morning. It’s too hard to wake up early in the morning. I want to sleep longer. After waking up, I shower and I eat breakfast. And I apply make-up. I leave my house around 8’clock. I take the bus to school.
Before we look at the sentences, let’s break down the vocabulary used in this short paragraph.
Vocabulary
- 저 – me
- 는 – topic marking particle (click here if you want to learn more)
- 보통 – usually
- 아침 – morning
- 에 – location marking particle (click here if you want to learn more)
- 시 – hour
- 일어나다 – to wake up
- 일찍 – early
- 너무 – very
- 힘들다 – to be difficult
- 더 – more
- 자다 – to sleep
- 샤워 – shower
- 하다 – to do
- 먹다 – to eat
- 그리고 – and
- 화장 – make up
- 쯤 – around
- 집 – house
- 에서 – from
- 나가다 – to leave
- 버스 – bus
- 타다 – to get on/to ride
- 학교 – school
- 가다 – go
Sentence breakdown
저는 보통 아침에 7시에 일어나요.
This sentence translates to “I usually wake up at 7 in the morning”. 저 means “I” and we added 는 to it since the topic of this sentence is me. We are talking about me and my morning routine hence the topic of the sentence will be “저”.
보통 is used just like the English word “usually” to form sentences such as “보통 몇시에 공부해요?” (What time do you usually study) or “하나가 보통 언제 집에 도착해요?” (When does Hanna usually arrive at home?).
아침 is morning or breakfast. (아침 먹었어요? – Did you eat breakfast?). In this example, it obviously refers to morning and because we want to say that we wake up at a certain time IN the morning, we need to add “에” to 아침 to mark the time and make it “IN the morning”.
The next part is similar to the previous paragraph since we are stating what time we wake up in the morning. “시” is “hour” and we add the marking particle “에” to mark the time so it translates to “AT 7 o’clock”.
Isn’t 일어나가 an action verb, shouldn’t it use 7시에서?
Students ask
While this is a good question, remember that 에서 is never used with time, it’s used with a location so in this case the rule does not apply. If you want to know the difference between 에 and 에서, read this article!
일어나요 is the verb to get up/wake up. However, it is useful to note that it literally means to “get up”. It can be translated to “wake up” as well, but it would not apply in situations where you wake up but are still in bed since this verb implies that you are out of your bed and doing other things. The verb stem is “일어나다”.
아침에 일찍 일어나기 너무 힘들어요.
Again, in this context, 아침 refers to the morning. We need to add “에” to mark the time so it translates to “in the morning”. “일찍” just means “early”. Some other sample sentences would be “일찍 왔네요” (you came early” or “일찍 도착할게요” (I will arrive early). 일어나기 is the same verb as in the first sentence and the verb stem is “일어나다”. However, changing it to 일어나기, we change it into nominalised verb, so the function of it becomes like a noun “waking up”. The nuance is the act of waking up and then we go on and describe that it’s difficult (“힘들다”). So, “일어나기 힘들어요” means “waking up is difficult”. You can use the same structure with other verbs.
공부하기 힘들어요 – studying is difficult
운동하기 힘들다 – exercising is difficult
And finally, to emphasise that it is very difficult, we add 너무 between the two; 일어나기 너무 힘들어요.
더 자고 싶어요.
This is a very simple sentence. 더 means more. 자다 is to sleep and when we conjugate the word 자다 to 자고 싶어요 it becomes want to sleep. So the whole sentence translates to “I want to sleep more”.
일어나서 샤워하고 아침 먹어요.
Once again, we have the verb “일어나다”. This time we conjugate it to “일어나서”. This is similar to 그래서 and can be used in few different ways.
- Reason plus 서 plus a result. For example, 비가 와서 못 갔어요 = It was raining so I couldn’t go. 너무 늦어서 못 갔어요 = It was too late so I couldn’t go. So in this instance it’s giving the nuance of ‘this happened so I couldn’t do something’.
- Action plus 서 plus another action that takes place after the first action. 일어나서 샤워 했어요 = I woke up and I took a shower/I woke up so I took a shower.
- Action plus 서 plus the plan or purpose of the action 돈 모아서 여행 갈 거예요 = I am going to go travelling after I save money. Here you are expressing your plan after a certain action i.e. saving money.
In the above sentence it is the 2 point. I woke up and I showered. 샤워하다 is to shower and adding 고 to the verb it becomes I showered AND. 고 combines two actions together. I shower and eat breakfast.
In this sentence, 아침 refers to breakfast, not morning. It is clear from the sentence since the verb 먹다 means to eat so it cannot refer to morning as that would not make sense.
그리고 화장 해요.
This is a straightforward sentence. 그리고 means and, 화장 is make up and 해요 is do. And I do my make up.
8시쯤에 집에서 나가요.
8시쯤에 – let’s break this down a little. 시 is clock so 8시 is 8 o’clock. 쯤 means around and we add 에 to mark the time here. It becomes “At around 8 o’clock”. Now, this is a little interesting since you can say “Around 8 o’clock” in English and it makes complete sense. It’s the same in Korean as well in this example. “8시쯤” is completely ok to say and everyone will understand you. But just for the sake of completion, it will sound better if you say “8시쯤에”.
집 means house and we are adding 에서 since we want to say I leave the house. Think of it as saying “I leave FROM the house”.
버스 타고 학교에 가요.
버스 is a Konglish word and means bus. With any type of transport, we use the verb “타다”.
버스 타다 – Ride the bus/get on the bus
차 타다 – Ride the car/get in the car
비행기 타다 – Ride the plane/get on the plane
-고 as previously mentioned, joins two actions together and it means “and”. 학교 is school and we add “에” since we go TO school.