vancewong

마지못하다 (ma-ji-mo-ta-da) – to be forced to do something against one’s will Examples: 그 남자는 여자친구의 부탁마다 마지못해 승낙해서 자주 싸워. That man is forced to agree to every request his girlfriends makes so they fight often. 한생들은 숙제를 마지못해 하면 공부하는 것에…

꼼짝도 못 하다 (ggom-jjak-do mo-ta-da) – come to a standstill/unable to move at all This phrase can be used to express physical immobility or metaphorical immobility. 꼼짝 here kind of means “move”, which explains the translation. Examples: 아까 어린들이 너무…

연달아 (yeon-da-ra) – continuously one after another This word might seem like it needs to be conjugated or there is a plain form but it works just like any other adverbs. Therefore, you can just attach 연달아 to any verb…

시들해지다 (si-deu-rae-ji-da) – to wane/wear off/fade You realise that there is a “지다” at the end of this word, which has the meaning of “to become”. 시들다 by itself means “to wither (away)” or “to slowly die off”. Therefore, we…

어쩌다 보니 (eo-jjeo-da bo-ni) – somehow (one thing led to another)… This is quite similar to 왠지, which essentially means the same thing, “somehow”. However, 어쩌다 보니 can be used to indicate that the outcome or current situation is a little…

향긋하다 (hyang-geu-ta-da) – aromatic, sweet There isn’t much special about this word but I learned about this while reading a Korean novel and just thought it would be nice to have another word to describe scents. The usual words you…

일손을 쉬다 (il-so-neul swi-da) – to take a break from work I’ve just learned about this word today while writing my blog post. I was thinking of how to say “take a break” but I didn’t specify “work”. Nevertheless, this…

~에 기인하다 (~e gi-in-a-da) – to be caused by/come from/originates from This phrase is used to explain causal relationships between two nouns. 기인 by itself means “cause”. Examples: 그 학생의 좋은 시험 결과는 열심히 공부하기에 기인하거든. That student’s good results…

Note that “생각이 나다” and “생각나다” very different from “생각을 하다” and “생각하다”. 생각이 나다 = 생각나다 (shorter form) 생각을 하다 = 생각하다 (shorter form and more commonly used) As you can see, one uses a subject marker and the other…

떠올리다 (ddeo-ol-li-da) – to remember/to think about This is quite different from 추억팔이, but more of “to remember/think about from memory”, or “plucking something from memory”. Another way of saying “to remember” about something from memory is “생각이 나다” or just…