7 Mind-Blowing Facts About the Korean Language 🇰🇷

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Oh, this is a fun video. Every language has unique traits of their own. And in this video, I want to talk about seven fun facts about the Korean language. So, later when you study Korean, you remember, "Oh, Aina mentioned about that. That's why it's like this."

[00:00:21]Because Korean is very different from English. And today, I want to solve some mysteries you guys have.

[00:00:29]So, let's get into it. Make sure you subscribe so you can see even more videos from me every week. So, here we go. Number one. This is probably really shocking to many people.

[00:00:43]Did you know in Korean most of the times we don't use plural?

[00:00:50]In English, I know it's really important that we say a book or books. Let me know. Like that one S makes a big difference. Animal, animals. Cup, cups.

[00:01:04]But in Korean, you don't do that. You assume. I guess that's so part of our culture. We assume and we just like read between the lines and we kind of like do nun chi ba everything and figure things on on our own. It's like, "Okay, okay."

[00:01:22]Like we don't even call people by our names. Do you know that, right? It's like by titles. So, then your next question is, "Aina, when do you guys use plural? Do you not use it at all?"

[00:01:35]So, let me make it clear for you. So, we do have a plural particle. So, I'm going to tell you what it is. Let me grab my pen real quick.

[00:01:44]So, if you want to make things into plural in Korean, you need this word right here.

[00:01:54]들 So, this is just an arrow. This is the actual word. Everybody say 들 들 들. So if you add this next to something, it becomes plural. But as I said, we often don't use 들.

[00:02:13]But when you talk about humans or animals, you can use it. For example, friend is 친구. Right? You've heard of that. So you can say 친구들 만났어요. Today, 오늘 친구들 만났어요. I met friends. But I could drop 들 and say 친구 만났어요. I met a friend.

[00:02:37]But it might be a friend. It might be friends. I could drop my 들. But if I keep going with my stories, and let's say I met two three friends, and but I still didn't use 들, that's not grammatically incorrect because people can assume.

[00:02:54]You know what I mean? So like it's not that important that we skip this plural thing ever. But if you want to emphasize that there were so many people at the mall today, something like this. Like your intention is to like let them know that there were so many of something, then you can use 들.

[00:03:14]Like today at the mall, 오늘 쇼핑 갔는데 사람 사람 is people. 사람 들이 너무 많았어. There were so many people at the mall.

[00:03:27]>> [gasps and sighs] >> 사람들 or 친구들.

[00:03:31]So it depends on how much you want to emphasize. But just letting you know, we it's not nothing like English. So just imagine when Korean people try to learn English, they're going to be always skipping plural. And this is This part's going to be really hard cuz we don't grow up learning S S to all the objects. Oh, especially object, you never really put plural. Like check is book in Korean, but you don't ever go check-der.

[00:04:03]That's grammatically wrong. Like we don't ever put der with objects.

[00:04:09]Remember that. I guess that's the one good thing. You don't have to worry about do I have to make this plural? Do I have to make it singular? No.

[00:04:17]So, I guess it's a good part for learning Korean for the first time, right? So, that's fun fact number one.

[00:04:24]Interesting?

[00:04:25]Number two.

[00:04:27]Woohoo, you guys know this one cuz I already mentioned this so many times in my shorts, in my other videos, too, but in Korean subject is often dropped. This goes back to our culture where we assume a lot and our language is very context-based.

[00:04:44]You hear the story, you hear the context, and you kind of get it.

[00:04:49]Right? But, due to that, there is miscommunication, too.

[00:04:54]>> [laughter] >> Just imagine. Things got to be assumed, but people all think differently. So, I can see where the miscommunication is.

[00:05:02]So, especially when you're talking about yourself, let me just grab my pen. Like I Oh, you normally don't mention that.

[00:05:13]Maybe in the very beginning, and then you don't go choneun choneun naneun naneun. No. But, if you want to just like kind of compare that. For me, like naneun, like you like fish, but for me, I like meat. Naneun gogi joahae. Then, you can put I cuz I with a topic marker, there is another meaning that you're adding.

[00:05:36]Like, oh, like compared to you, or just for me, I have this taste, you know?

[00:05:44]Then, you can put it, but usually like in English, we put I like this. I do this. Okay, I'll be back. I'm going to go here. I I No, no, no, no. In fact, we don't even use pronouns like he, she, it. No.

[00:06:00]In our day-to-day speech. Maybe in a book, yes, but day-to-day, not even pronouns. So you're like, then how do you know who's talking? Like who are you talking You got to hear the context and just assume.

[00:06:15]>> [laughter] >> So, yeah. But usually I is skipped, so maybe they're talking about themselves.

[00:06:21]But the crazy part is you is also skipped. Like it's kind of disrespectful to say like you all the time, but we have honorific titles.

[00:06:31]You know. So just know that. You got to really hear the context to figure out.

[00:06:37]But I'm just saying I is the most commonly dropped ones. Number three, you guys know um in Korean we have a different word order when it comes to making sentences in Korean. And I follow this simple rule. Like right here we have S the subject and then W for three things.

[00:06:59]When and then whom, like with whom you're with and where. So all three of them can go right here in the W.

[00:07:10]And then O stands for object and V is verb. So if you're making a sentence, follow this pattern and if you're like, Aina, um I want to know more about sentence making, highly recommend you watch my sentence making playlist cuz in there I already have several.

[00:07:31]So many free videos and resources that you can see and I literally use a chart that has S W O V and then I plug in Korean words one by one so you guys can see how the verbs go at the end. How the W plays a role, all that. Okay, highly recommend watching my SWOV chart sentence making practice. Really going to help you so much. But because of our verbs at the end, it's going to be like this. I taco eat.

[00:08:11]I Korean study. Now I'm going to go and go and go and go and go and go and go and I you love. Love is at the end. So that's how we talk in Korean language.

[00:08:23]Kind of flipped from English. But you don't even have subject cuz it's I I I I. So it's like a WOV most of the times unless you want to specify the subject.

[00:08:34]Okay? So that is another fun fact that I want you to be aware of when you're making sentences in Korean.

[00:08:41]Oh, and number four, this is a good one.

[00:08:43]We don't have articles.

[00:08:45]Um as I said, we don't have even plurals most of the times. So why articles? We don't have to specify if it's a a and like one or two. It's all assumed. It's all by context so it makes sense that we have no articles.

[00:08:59]So don't worry about it. But imagine Korean people learning English. They're going to struggle so much. They're like, we have to put a a in front of a apple?

[00:09:10]An apple? What? A book?

[00:09:13]Real struggle. I am multilingual so like my brain was going crazy learning both languages. Just imagine that. Even now I get so confused. I'm like, wait, yeah, I'm speaking Korean. Okay, Korean head come back. Okay, I'm speaking English.

[00:09:29]English head come back. Okay? So that's how it's going to be like. And though we don't have that too, but we do have like that or this, like that is like a little similar to the.

[00:09:45]But, don don don, we have something called particles.

[00:09:51]Um, if you've been studying Korean for 6 months, you probably have heard of subject markers, topic markers.

[00:09:59]So, subject markers are iga, topic markers unnun, object markers ullul, location time marker e, location from marker eso, and then we have and then with wa gwa irang hago. This is just the basic six, the first six that you must know as you're trying to form sentences.

[00:10:23]And there's more particles, too, but this is the basic that everybody needs to learn as a beginner, as someone who is serious about Korean language because we use particles every day for everything.

[00:10:37]Yes. So, and honestly, you know, like this is not going to be taught in just one video.

[00:10:45]Like it really has to be explained in details, and so many students look up what is subject marker, what is a topic marker, and it's really hard to find a resource for that. But, I just want to tell you that 6 months ago I launched this program called Sentence Freedom in the hopes of giving you freedom of forming sentences.

[00:11:13]And here I just talked about all the questions that people don't talk about. Like I wanted to give you the answer to all the particles. You see like right here, like it says particles here. Like essential Korean particles, you see vocab expansion, the sentence structure beyond the SOV, verb conjugation to present tense, past tense, and future tense. Um of course, using my fun magnet system cuz without fun, we're not going to learn. I don't like that. And we have irregular verb rules. No one talks about that, but in Korean rules change. And I wanted to like give you the details for everything. Then we have our workbook and um pattern study, too. So basically everything related to sentence making.

[00:12:07]And if you know how to read Korean and you're just like lost after that, this is it. Like if there's one program that I recommend for that level of students, like you just finished the alphabet and you're like I want to save time and invest in a really good program where it teaches me everything about sentence making, this is it. You know, I'm so confident with my programs because hundreds and thousands of you are making I don't know, taking my courses and letting me know how it saved you thousands of hours of you searching on your own and you were having fun and it clicked for you.

[00:12:53]So I'm very confident.

[00:12:55]Um so I will have all the link right here so you guys can check it all out.

[00:13:00]Link in the description and on my website I have other programs, too, but specifically we're talking about particles and patterns and forming sentences and all the fun stuff about just just making your own sentences beyond just saying apple, beyond saying a microphone, but saying just like how I'm speaking, like you making your own sentences. If that is your goal, you cannot miss out on this course.

[00:13:26]All right, so that is I just wanted to give you the tools and programs that I have. So, people who are like ready and who are looking for programs to help and improve their skills, we are here for you.

[00:13:41]Okay? So, that's just real quick um program introduction, and let's continue on. I have up to six I seven. So, the next one is counting changes depending on what you count. What? I don't know any other languages have this. But, we have something called Sino numbers and native numbers. Sino numbers come from Chinese characters. So, we we kind of got influenced by China a long time ago, so we still kept that system. And we have native number system where it's just native Korean numbers, but we use both equal amount. So, please don't ask "What do I use, Aina? Do Can I just learn one?" No, you have to learn both because native numbers are used for this and Sino numbers are used for this. Here this um quick song, okay? And hear the difference. By the way, these two videos that I screenshot it, I recently posted about them. Each one is like 25 minutes.

[00:14:50]All about numbers, all free on my YouTube channel. So, if you're really wanting to learn numbers, please go watch this and take lots of notes. Sino numbers goes goes something like this.

[00:15:02]I'm going to sing for you because singing is good for your brain. Ready?

[00:15:07]Ili sam, sa oyu, chil pal gu ship.

[00:15:11]Young, ili sam, sa oyu, chil pal gu ship. When do we use it? We use it for money. We use it for dates, like counting dates. We use it for phone numbers, length, weight, height. That's Sino numbers. Go watch that video.

[00:15:31]And for native numbers, um it goes like hana dul set. Ready?

[00:15:35]hana dul set net daseot yeoseot ilgop yeodeol ahop yeol ilgop yeodeol ahop yeol. When do we use it? We count people. We count things. We count ages and hours.

[00:15:58]Wow. So, that is native Korean numbers.

[00:16:01]Isn't it cool that we have two systems?

[00:16:04]It's kind of complicated for learners.

[00:16:06]Not that good, but we got to learn both.

[00:16:08]That's the truth.

[00:16:10]>> [gasps] >> All right. Then that leaves us with our last fun fact, which is you rarely call people by their name.

[00:16:19]So, American people will be shocked when they learn this because I know even when you go to Starbucks, you have to say your name.

[00:16:29]But in Korean, like when you go to Starbucks, when you go into a cafe, you know what they do? They don't call your name. They give you a buzzer because it's weird that we call people name. So, when your buzzer rings, we go pick up our drinks.

[00:16:44]That is because of our culture of having honorifics.

[00:16:50]Having people by calling oppa, hyeong, noona, eonni, like sajangnim, all of these honorific titles. Depending on your age, if you're older than me, I'll have to call you something. If you're younger than me, I can call you by your names. Right? So, I guess it really depends on, you know, your age. But if someone's younger than you and you guys already have a relationship, then you can say their name. Like, my name in Korean is Ena. Um although American name it's Aina. But, they can say Inaya, adding the I and ya to make it even friendly. Okay? So, that is usually how it goes and there's all kinds of honorific titles. You can search it up.

[00:17:40]It's like to hold it. Older sister, older brother, all that even at work, too.

[00:17:47]Okay? So, that's all for all the fun facts about Korean language. Did you find it fun? Did you find it interesting, very different, or very similar to your language? Let me know in the comments and if you found this one really helpful and watched it and you commented, I will try to make series and bring a part two of it. How does that sound? Yes? And by the way, if you're looking for resources to learn Korean, just know that I have so many at this point of our company, like we have published five books and four courses. How to read Korean, making sentences, the patterns, the shadowing course, that's the most recent one for speaking practice. All of the things that you're seeing here are the books, but if you go to my website, you have courses, too. Books are good if you just like to open up a book and do it on your own. Courses, on the other hand, they have my face, my videos really guiding you step by step. So, depending on your learning style, if you're someone who just likes to open the book and go through the pages on your own, that's going to be the book style. And if you're someone like me, I want to see videos. So, I invest in lots of courses. I love writing, so I always invest and buy writing courses myself because like when I invest in myself, I know it comes back multiplied cuz self-investment and I want to grow myself and become a better person.

[00:19:25]And yeah, so courses are available on my website, so you can browse and whatever it feels good to you and you need, you can shop on my website. All right, so that is everything for today's video. I hope you found them helpful and I'll see you next time. As always, I love you and thank you so much for learning Korean with me.

[00:19:48]Okay.