Saturday, November 24, 2018

What do you look like in Korean

This video will teach you how to describe what you look like in Korean. Most of it is review, but it's always exciting to put everything we've learned into useful paragraphs. The relevant accompanying videos are these ones on screen now. They are linked in the description and at the end of the video.
So here we go, a series of sentences you can use to describe your appearance. You can also use these sentences to describe other people's appearances so long as you change the pronoun "I" to whatever noun is appropriate.
Let's start by describing our height.
You can say "I am tall."
나는 키가 커. (casual for talking to friends or people younger than you)
저는 키가 커요. (polite for when you're talking to a stranger or someone older than you)
저는 키가 큽니다. (formal for when you are talking to a group or someone you really respect)
you can say "I am short."
나는 키가 작아.
저는 키가 작아요.
저는 키가 작습니다

you can say exactly how tall or short
I am ____ cm
나는 _____ 센티미터야.
저는 _____ 센티미터예요.
저는 _____ 센티미텁니다.
there are two ways to say cm. one is sen-ti-mi-teo the other is sen-chi
나는 _____ 센치야.
저는 _____ 센치예요.
저는 _____ 센칩니다.
you can say if you're fat or slender
뚱뚱하다. or 날씬하다 and conjugate it like so.
I am fat.
나는 뚱뚱해.
저는 뚱뚱해요.
저는 뚱뚱합니다.
I am slender.
나는 날씬해.
저는 날씬해요.
저는 날씬합니다.

and you can say exactly how much you weigh
I am ___ Kg.
나는 ___ 킬로그램이야.
저는 ___ 킬로그램이에요.
저는 ___ 킬로그램입니다.

Remember for our height and weight we always use the sino-Korean numbering system.
You can describe your face. Which of your facial features are big or small.
The word for big is one you might remember 크다 then we have to conjugate it so we can use it in front of a noun. cut off the da and add 은 or ㄴ
큰 keun
and the word for small is...do you remember? 작다 then you conjugate it to.....작은 ja-geun.
and the names for facial features are as follows:
눈 nun eyes
코 ko nose
입술 ip-sul lips
턱 teok chin
귀 gwi ears

When you are talking about your body you use the form of the sentence I have ___.
with 가지고 ga-ji-go in it and a reul/eul object marker.
I have big eyes.
나는 큰 눈을 가지고 있어.
저는 큰 눈을 가지고 있어요.
저는 큰 눈을 가지고 있습니다.
작은 눈,코,입술,턱,귀
big small-eyes, nose, lips, chin, ears

What colour are your eyes? Remember colours?
Blue eyes are 파란색 눈
Brown eyes are 갈색 눈
Green eyes are 녹색 눈

I have blue eyes.
나는 파란색 눈을 가지고 있어.
저는 파란색 눈을 가지고 있어요.
저는 파란색 눈을 가지고 있습니다.

Do you have a moustache or a beard?
moustache is 콧수염, beard is (턱)수염
notice that the word for moustache has the word for nose in it 'ko'
because moustaches are under your nose
and the word for beard has the word for chin in it 'teok'
because beards are under your chin

I have a ____.
나는 콧수염을 가지고 있어.
저는 콧수염을 가지고 있어요.
저는 콧수염을 가지고 있습니다.

and your hair....
what colour is it?
When you're talking about your hair colour you don't say "I have" you say "I am".
Like: "I am a red head", "I am a brunette" or as Koreans would say
I am red coloured hair
저는 빨간색 머리예요.
I am brown coloured hair
저는 갈색 머리예요.
and there are few different ways to describe blonde and black hair
you could say I am blonde & I am blonde coloured hair.
저는 블론드예요.
저는 블론드색 머리예요.
But more commonly they say I am golden haired.
저는 금발 머리예요.
or I am gold coloured hair.
저는 금색 머리예요.

and then black can be the obvious
I am black coloured hair
저는 검은색 머리예요
or it can be
저는 흑발색 머리예요
흑발색 is a word for black that is only used to describe hair colour. But 검은색 (geom-eun saek) is more commonly used.
금발색 (geum-bal-saek) is also a word that refers only to hair colour.
They both have bal in them which is odd because bal means foot....??
But bal as a word for foot is actually a word that comes from Chinese I've been told... but the only Chinese word for foot I found sounds nothing like bal. So it's still a mystery to me.
But that's enough of that rabbit hole.
To summarize:
검은색 갈색 금색 빨간색
geom-eun saek, gal saek, geum-saek, and bbal-gan-saek
and black hair can also be 흑발색  heuk-bal-saek and blonde can also be 금발색 geum-bal-saek

I have blonde hair.
나는 금색 머리야.
저는 금색 머리예요.
저는 금색 머립니다.

Lets keep describing hair. Is it hair short, medium, or long.
짧은 머리 short hair
중간 길이 머리 medium length hair
긴 머리 long hair
This time don't say I am___ that is only for hair colour. use the I have ___. sentences with gajigo in them.
For example:
I have medium length hair.
나는 중간길이 머리를 가지고 있어.
저는 중간길이 머리를 가지고 있어요.
저는 중간길이 머리를 가지고 있습니다.
is it curly, wavey, or straight?
곱슬 curly
반곱슬 wavey
직모 /or 생머리straight
I have wavey hair.
나는 반곱슬 머리를 가지고 있어.
저는 반곱슬 머리를 가지고 있어요.
저는 반곱슬 머리를 가지고 있습니다.

and describe your skin color. the word for skin is 피부. like peekaboo without the ka
Just for variety's sake, and because it sounds a little more natural, we will say this sentence a little different.
Instead of saying "I have____." Let's say "My skin is _____."

skin colour=피부 색
My skin is light.
제 피부는 하얀 편이에요.(light skin)
My skin is tan.
제 피부는 태닝한 피부예요.(tan)
My skin is dark.
제 피부는 검은 편이에요. (dark skin)

I'm just giving you three examples. I realize it's probably a bit limiting.
You could use this style of sentence with all the other examples. just replace the word skin with hair, nose, eyes, lips, height etc and change the adjective to whatever you want.
hair, nose, eyes, lips, height adjective
now those were all just details. what about the OVERALL effect of your appearance. Are you goodlooking?
The word for goodlooking is 멋있다 and the word for not good looking is 멋없다
나는 멋있어.
저는 멋있어요.
저는 멋있습니다.
나는 멋없어.
저는 멋없어요.
저는 멋없습니다.

or you can say if you're pretty or ugly.
I am pretty is
나는 예뻐.
저는 예뻐요.
저는 예쁩니다. 
예쁘다 this word is usually not used to describe men or boys
is  못생겼다 it can be used to describe males and females and things

I am ugly
나는 못생겼어
저는 못생겼어요
저는 못생겼습니다
and remember adjectives have is/am/or are built into them.

So that's how we describe ourselves. and we can put it all together in a paragraph like this one that I made to describe myself.

저는 백육십오 센티미텁니다. 육십 킬로그램입니다. 큰 눈을 가지고 있습니다. 파란색 눈입니다. 금발 머립니다. 중간 길이 머리를 가지고 있습니다. 반곱슬 머리를 가지고 있습니다.
aaaannnd if you wanna sound really good. like a real Korean you can make use of the words for "and" like I did here
저는 백육십오 센티미터이고 육십 킬로그램입니다. 파란색 큰 눈을 가지고 있습니다 그리고 금발의 중간길이 머리를 가지고 있고 반곱슬입니다.
So now you have a description of what I look like. and there should be no surprises in the next video where I'll be speaking face to camera ... because we are well over due for a 1000 subscribers celebration. See ya next time. thanks for studying with me.

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