Does your language have a unit for words? Korean has one, at least unofficially: 마디. This cute little word originally means a node on a plant, such as the one on a bamboo. By similarity, it also refers to joints (e.g., of a finger) or even a bar (measure) in musical scores. But most colloquially, Koreans use 마디 to describe roughly the quantity of words. A linguist would ask, “What exactly does 마디 count, then? A syllable, a morpheme, a clause, or a sentence?” Please note that 마디 is not an academic term or a scientific unit, but a common colloquial way to roughly quantify words that make sense. So it can be a word, or a clause, or a sentence, as long as it makes sense.
- 그냥 형식적인 인사말로 두세 마디만 하시면 됩니다. Just a few words of formal greeting will do.
- 한마디 하면 걔는 열 마디 해 If you say one word to him, he talks back ten times as much
- 말 한마디로 천냥 빛을 갚는다 A soft answer turns away wrath [ Korean proverb. It means literally, “With one word, one can repay a debt of a thousand nyang,” where 냥 nyang is an old Korean currency unit. ]
Level C2: Since 마디 is such an unofficial approximate unit of words, the most common phrase you would hear with it is 한마디 (one single word), and never 다섯 마디 or 여섯 마디, for example. After listening to it in a funny scene from “The Haunted Palace,” you will hear lines with 한마디 in three well-known Kpop hit songs I handpicked just for you. What are those lines in Korean? Can you also translate them into your language?
Music credit:
김수희, “애모 (愛慕) Adoring Love” (1990)
이용, “잊혀진 계절 A Forgotten Season” (1982), Performed by 아이유 IU (2020)
Jung Kook (BTS), “Stay Alive” (2022)
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