Sofie to Korea

I thought is was about time I wrote a real Korean-learning post. Today, I chosen to write a brief grammar entry on how to turn Korean nouns into adjectives and adverbs. Like in English, where we turn nouns into adjectives by adding e.g. -al /-able as in nature –> natural or love –> lovable, Korean, too, has several ways of turning nouns into adjectives.

Let’s look at two of them:

1)

For many Sino-Korean you may add 적(이다) like below

경제 (economy) 경제적이다 (economical) –> 경제적인 자동차 (economical car)

과학 (science) 과학적이다 (scientific) –> 과학적인 방법 (scientific method)

2)

For other words you may add 스럽다 (ㅂirregular)

사랑 (love) 사랑스럽다 (lovable) –> 사랑스러운 여자 (lovable woman)

자연 (nature) 자연스럽다 (natural) –> 자연스러운 피부 (natural skin)

Apparently, there is no general rule as to whether you should use 1) or 2), but I’ve been told that it becomes easier to guess the more Korean you learn.

Furthermore, by adding 적으로 or 스럽게, respectively, you can turn the nouns into adverbs.

과학적으로 (scientifically)

자연스럽게 (naturally)

Since this is my first post on Korean grammar I’ll make it quick. I plan to write a post on Korean verbs in the active/passive/causative form in the near future, so stay tuned ^^