Long before BTS and Blackpink, ordinary Koreans sang songs called “가곡 (歌曲),” which can be best translated as either “gagok” or “Korean Art Song” in…
Rhyme is a concept reserved for poetry in European languages, generally speaking. It is not often used in Korean poetry, mainly due to the agglutinative…
Korea is one of the few countries on earth that did not experience colonization by the West and did not colonize other countries. Of course,…
Koreans take poems seriously. In fact, it would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that the entire Korean aristocracy during 500 years…
English, among other languagues, uses the same word “When” for two different purposes, namely, i) when you ask questions, and ii) when you say a…
가을에는 기도하게 하소서 낙엽들이 지는 때를 기다려 내게 주신 겸허한 모국어로 나를 채우소서 가을에는 사랑하게 하소서 오직 한 사람을 택하게 하소서 가장 아름다운 열매를 위하여…
꽃길 (꽃 = Flower, 길 = Road/Path) has about the same metaphoric meaning as in English – Flower or Flowery Path. It speaks of a…
Concessive clause with -도 When a Korean clause has an ending with “-도,” it is an expression of “concession.” In English, such a clause can…
Today’s Korea is a peninsula, so it is “almost” surrounded by seas or the Pacific Ocean. However strange it may sound in English, Korea is…
Do you live, by any chance, far away from your hometown? Do you often miss your hometown? If so, no matter where you live now,…
Roaming in a country where yelling or even raising the voice in public is considered a social taboo, I have long forgotten that some ordinary…
Je vois que certains d’entre vous aimeraient apprendre le coréen depuis le début. Vous aimez la Corée, alors vous aimeriez aussi parler la langue. Tant…