Transportation Vocabulary

 Hello my fellow students. This is a vocabulary lesson about forms of transportation. We will start with modes of transportation you can do without a vehicle. Ones that you can do with just your body like 'crawl'. That's one way you can get around: crawl. We're gonna learn these verbs in the infinitive form. Like 'to crawl' That is the way I think you should learn verbs. learn the infinitive, then you can conjugate them to the present, past, or future tenses. People don’t usually talk in the infinitive form but it is useful to memorize the infinitive and learn how to conjugate verbs from the infinitive into whichever tense you want. 

Anyway,

to crawl is 기다 gi-da

이 아기는 겨요 "i a-i-gi-neun gyeo-yo" that's the present tense of "This baby crawls" 이 아기는 겨요 i a-i-gi-neun gyeo-yo 

기다 gi-da

And after you crawl you learn 

to walk 걷다 geot-da

then after you walk you learn 

to run 달리다 dal-li-da

How else can we move? We can jump.

to jump 뛰다 ddwi-da

We can also climb 

to climb 오르다 o-reu-da

Look at how this word sounds like 'over the' o-reu-da. Climb o-reu-da, climb over the.

And, of course, the pinnacle of human movement to dance! 

to dance 춤추다 chum-chu-da

I like to think the sound-effect of dancing is choom choom choom choom. choom-chu-da!

But there is another way humans can move: swim! 

to swim 수영하다 su-yeong-ha-da

and I don't know how many winged creatures will be studying Korean with me, but if there are any then you guys can fly 

to fly 날다 nal-da

And that's all we got for un-aided transportation. We can also move with the help of vehicles. Some vehicles you ride, and some vehicles you drive, and some vehicles you can do both. So I will teach you the word for ride and the word for drive.

to ride is 타다 ta-da

to drive is 운전하다 un-jeon-ha-da

Notice how this word sounds like engine hada? 운전/engine? hada means to do, so this word is like "to do engine"=to drive. But there is another way to say it....몰다. What is the difference between these two words for drive... well more specifically 운전하다 means "to operate a vehicle" and 몰다 means "to transport someone/something". 

so you say I drive a car 나는 차를 운전해 na-neun cha-reul un-jeon-hae

and you say I drive you to Seoul 나는너를 서울에 몰아 na-neun neo-reul Seo-ul-e mol-a. 

We will focus on the word un-jeon-ha-da in the remainder of this lesson.

Alright our first vehicle is 

the bicycle 자전거 ja-jeon-geo 

And in Korean they always say ride a bicycle 

to ride a bike 자전거 타다 ja-jeon-geo ta-da 

Next vehicle… it’s an easy one 

car is 

차 cha

 or 

자동차 ja-dong-cha

Cha is more modern and cool and casual. And you can ride a car 

to ride a car 자동차 타다 or 차 타다 

Or you can drive a car 

to drive a car 자동차 운전하다 or 차 운전하다  

Remember: Car is cha… ja-dong-cha!

Our next vehicle is a taxi. This one is more easy 

taxi is 택시 taek-shi

to ride a taxi 택시 타다

to drive the taxi 택시 운전하다 

If you are a taxi driver the word for that is 택시 기사 (taek-shi gi-sa). If you get into a taxi in Korea you can 안녕하세요 택시기사 (an-nyeong-ha-se-yo taek-shi gi-sa) or you can be extra polite and say  안녕하세요 택시기사님 (an-nyeong-ha-se-yo taek-shi gi-sa-nim). Gi-sa is what you call a professional driver and -nim at the end makes it more polite.

The next vehicle is a bus. Wanna guess how to say bus? 

Bus is

버스 beo-seu

You can ride the bus 

to ride the bus 버스 타다 beo-seu ta-da 

or, if you are a 버스 기사 beo-seu gi-sa, 

you can drive the bus 

to drive the bus 버스 운전하다 beo-seu un-jeon-ha-da

Now it’s time to learn train. 

Train is 

기차 gi-cha 

the train is gonna getchya gi-cha gi-cha gi-cha! 

To ride the train 기차 타다 gi-cha ta-da. 

Notice how the word for car: cha is inside gi-cha. That little word cha is actually inside a few different forms on transportation. If you want to drive the train 

To drive the train is 기차 운전하다 gi-cha un-jeon-ha-da

The next method of transportation is airplane 

Airplane 비행기 bi-haeng-gi 

In Korean you say I drive the airplane. never say I fly the airplane, say I drive the airplane

to drive the airplane 비행기를 운전하다 bi-haeng-gi un-jeon-ha-da

to fly the airplane 비행기를 타다 bi-haeng-gi ta-da

And finally we move to the water and learn boat. 

Boat is 보트 bo-teu

The is how you say boat

to ride the boat is 보트 타다 bo-teu ta-da

to drive the boat is 보트 운전하다 bo-teu un-jeon-ha-da

But what if you have a big boat? That is a ship! 

Ship in Korean is 배 Bae 

which is also the word for stomach. Context is very important in Korean. 

To ride a ship is 배 타다 bae ta-da

To drive the ship you can say  배 운전하다 bae un-jeon-ha-da

and because it is a ship we could also say pilot a ship

pilot a ship 배 조종하다 bae jo-jong-ha-da

to pilot is 조종하다 jo-jong-ha-da

Here's a chart of everything we learned today: