Hello, this is a Korean teacher, ZZINTEACHER, who majored in Education, English and German at the university and had a master’s degree in Teaching Korean as a Foreign Language.
‘Learn Korean with BTS’ contents are very interesting but a little bit hard to understand unless you’ve already learned the basic level of Korean.
That is why I’m making videos to help you to understand the ‘Learn Korean with BTS’ contents no matter which level of Korean you are speaking.
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Many I-ARMYs saying that the third episode is the most difficult one.
I think that is because they cover four different greeting expressions in a 3-minute-long video.
I am going to explain to you one by one, step by step, so don’t give up!
Let’s do this!
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1. 잘 지냈어요? How have you been?
You can say ‘잘 지냈어요(How have you been)?’ in a ‘Long Time No See’ situation.
When you meet someone who you haven’t seen for a while, you can say ‘안녕하세요, 잘 지냈어요?’
I like this episode the most because I can catch each member’s characteristics from their greeting styles.
For example, J-Hope said ‘잘 지냈어요?’ in a friendly way as a boyfriend does.
Jimin and RM said ‘잘 지내셨나요?’
Breaking down the sentence, it goes like this:
‘-(으)시-‘ is one of the honorific forms that are used when you talk to someone who you respect.
‘-나요?’ is used when you want to ask something in a gentle and soft way.
Here we can see that Jimin and RM are very gentle and soft and they respect the ARMY.
If ‘잘 지냈어요?’ can be translated as ‘How have you been?’, how can we say ‘How are you?’ in Korean?
In the expression ‘잘 지냈어요?’, there is ‘-었-‘.
‘-었-‘ is used when making the past tense in Korean.
If you want to change this into the present tense, you can just erase ‘-었-‘.
The present tense of ‘잘 지냈어요?’ becomes ‘잘 지내요?’.
Actually, Korean people don’t say ‘잘 지내요?’ as English speakers do on an everyday basis, ‘Hi, how are you?’.
So it was very difficult for me when I was working in America and in Australia to say ‘Hi, how are you?’
I was like saying ‘Hi’ and making an awkward smile.
I think most Koreans feel uncomfortable saying ‘Hi, how are you?’ like me.
So if you say ‘잘 지내요?’ in a face-to-face situation, the listener may misunderstand you thinking that ‘Why are you asking? We are having a conversation right now! Can’t you see that I’m okay?’
But in the video J-Hope said ‘잘 지내요?’
That is okay because we were talking about Mickey who was not in the conversation.
Then how can we say ‘How are you?’ in Korean like Koreans do?
Instead of ‘잘 지내요?’, we say ‘밥 먹었어요?’
It means ‘Did you have breakfast, lunch, or dinner?’
It’s not really asking you whether you have breakfast, lunch or dinner, just checking how well you are.
As I said in the first episode of ‘Learn Korean with BTS’, Korean people really care how well you eat.
So, don’t say ‘잘 지내요?’, say ‘밥 먹었어요?’, which sounds more fluent.
To sum up, You can say ‘잘 지냈어요?’ to someone who you haven’t seen for a while, and ‘밥 먹었어요?’ as ‘How are you?’ on an everyday basis.
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2. 오랜만이에요. It’s been a while.
In the second episode of ‘Learn Korean with BTS’, we’ve learned ‘-이에요/예요’ and ‘-입니다’.
They are like ‘Be verb’ in English, ‘-이에요/예요’ in an informal way, and ‘-입니다’ in a formal way.
In front of ‘-이에요/예요’ and ‘-입니다’ can come only ‘NOUN’.
Here we can guess that ‘오랜만’ is also a noun.
‘오랜만’ is an abbreviation of ‘오래간만’, which means ‘It’s been a while’.
It sounds like a sentence in English, but they are nouns in Korean.
Let’s take a look at what BTS members actually said.
Jin said ‘오랜만이에요’ in an informal way.
V said ‘오랜만입니다’ in a formal way.
Jimin said ‘오랜만이죠?’
‘-죠?’ is an abbreviation of ‘-지요?’
‘-지요?’ is used when you ask something that both of the speaker and the listener know.
Jungkook said a little bit differently, using ‘-에’
‘-에’ is like ‘in, on, at’ in English and used with a time expression.
Unlike English, the time expression should come first.
‘오랜만에 V앱을 켰습니다(I turned on V app after a long time)’
Using this pattern, you can also say that ‘오랜만에 방탄소년단 콘서트에 갔어요(I went to the BTS concert after a long time.)’, ‘오랜만에 한국 음식을 먹었어요(I had Korean food after a long time)’
To sum up, ‘오랜만이에요(It’s been a while)’ is good to use with ‘잘 지냈어요(How have you been?)’
You can say like this when you meet someone who you haven’t seen for a while.
‘안녕하세요, 오랜만이에요. 잘 지냈어요?’
3. 행복한 하루 되세요. Have a happy day.
‘행복하다’ means ‘to be happy’, ‘하루’ means ‘a day’, ‘되다’ means ‘to become’ and ‘-(으)세요’ is a sentence-closing ending which indicates imperative sentence like ‘Do something! Eat! Sit! Read!’.
This imperative sentence is only used with ‘You’.
That is why the sentence ‘행복한 하루 되세요’ become a grammatically wrong sentence, since a person cannot become a day.
Then, how can we correct it?
The first option is ‘오늘 하루가 ___에게 행복한 하루가 되기를 바랍니다(I wish today became a happy day for you.’
But it’s too long to say as a greeting expression.
Another option is ‘행복한 하루(를) 보내세요.’
‘보내다’ has a meaning of ‘to spend (time)’, so the sentence ‘행복한 하루(를) 보내세요’ is a grammatically correct sentence.
However, many Koreans say ‘행복한 하루 되세요’ anyway as BTS did in the video.
Suga said a little bit differently in the video ‘행복한 하루 되시고요.’
‘-고요’ has a meaning of ‘그리고(and)’.
So it indicates that the conversation is not over and more sentence is coming.
4. 수고하셨습니다. Thank you for your hard work.
It’s a short sentence but has a lot to explain.
‘수고하다’ means ‘to make a lot of efforts to do something.’
‘-(으)시-‘, as I explained above, is one of the honorific forms.
‘-았/었/했-‘ indicates the past tense in Korean.
‘-습니다/-ㅂ니다’ is a formal sentence-closing ending like ‘-입니다’, but used with verb and adjective.
So ‘수고하셨습니다’ literally means ‘You made a lot of efforts to do the work.’
And there is a hidden meaning ‘And Thank for that.’
You can say ‘수고하셨습니다(Thank you for your hard work)’ when the work is done, finished.
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I hope this explanation helped you to understand the 3rd episode of ‘Learn Korean with BTS’.
If you have any questions or requests, please leave a comment.
‘행복한 하루 보내시고요. 수고하셨습니다. 다음에 만나요.’
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[ENG/KOR CC] Korean Teacher Explains 'Learn! Korean with BTS' (EP 03. 잘 지냈어요?)
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