Lesson 22: Asking Questions in Korean:

How, What, Which, How Many

Vocabulary
Hover your mouse over any word to see examples of that word in use (you probably wont be
able to understand the grammar within the sentences at this point, but it is good to see as you
progress through your learning).
A PDF file neatly presenting all of these words and example sentences in addition to common
usages and specific notes can be found here.
Nouns:
= eggs
= seat/place to put something*
= importance/emphasis
= a fine (ticket)
= file
= lotion
= theory
= customs (cultural customs)
= skirt
= turn (turn to go)/order
= step/phase/stage
Verbs:
= to occupy a space
= collect
= attach
= to tear/rip something
= go and then come back
= expect
Adjectives:
() = correct
= complicated
= short/brief
Adverbs and Other Words:
= how much
= how many ___ (with a counter)
= what (adverb)
= what (adjective)
= what (noun)
= which
= some*
= which for places
? = How is/was ?

 = years old
= usually
= outside
= approximately*
= some sort of negative action
= reciprocally*
= must read (noun)
= how many (days?)
= percent
Words With *
For help memorizing these words, try using our Memrise tool.

Introduction
In the previous lesson, you learned about how to make questions sentences in Korean. In this
lesson, you will build on what you learned in Lesson 21 by learning more ways to ask questions
in Korean. Specifically, you will learn how to ask questions using the following words: how, what,
which and how many.
.

How ()
is the easiest of the words that you will learn today. The word is actually (a
word you dont know yet) turned into an adverb by adding ~ to the stem ( + ). Though
and are technically the same word, dont think of them that way. Just remember that
means how. You can use to ask how somebody does a verb, but it can not be
placed before an adjective or adverb in Korean to mean how (adjective/adverb). For example:
Learn is a verb, so you can use in the following sentence:
How did you learn?
Beautiful is an adjective. Often is an adverb. Which means you can not use in the
following sentences:
How beautiful is your girlfriend?
How often do you go to school?
You will learn another word () later in this lesson to use in those sentences.
Back to
is an adverb, so you can place it in sentences very freely:
? = How do you do that?
? = How did you learn Korean?
One thing that is different between English and Korean is when you ask what do you think
about If you want to say that in Korean, you have to use the equivalent of how do you think
about:

 ? = What do you think about that girl?

Thats pretty much all you need to know with regards to , but there is still more that you
should know about the word .

?
The word is rarely used as in sentences. Actually, if you asked Korean people if
they thought that and are the same word, they would probably say that the two
are completely different words.
In addition to , there is another way that you can use in sentences. Through
conjugation, can change to . Ill show you how changes to , but you really
dont need to worry about how it is changed (there are only a few other words in Korean that can
take on a similar transformation).
is an adjective
can be added to some adjectives ( + = )
+ = (the is dropped)
is the dictionary form. usually conjugates to
Say fast enough and it comes out as
is used to say how is/was the? or what do/did you think about? It is used when you
want to ask somebodys opinion/evaluation of something. It sounds more natural in Korean for
the thing you are asking about with to not have a particle. For example:
? = How was the lunch?/What did you think about the lunch? (was it delicious?
expensive? Etc..)
? = How is your boyfriend? (is he good/bad/handsome/etc..?)
It is also very commonly used in the present tense to say what about this?/what do you think
about this?
Think of this example. You and I are searching through a bunch of pictures, trying to find the best
one for my profile picture on Facebook. I find one that I like, but I want to ask you what do you
think about this picture/how about this picture? In that case, I can say:
? = How about this picture?
In fact, is probably the most commonly miss-translated word by Korean speakers learning
English. If you ask a Korean person what means, they will all say it means how about.
Sometimes, this is true, but can only be used as how about in a limited number of cases.
In the example I just gave about choosing a good picture, can be translated to how about.
But what about in the previous two examples:
How about the lunch?
How about your boyfriend?

Sounds weird, and most English people probably couldnt even understand the meaning of those
sentences.
Try it sometimes. If you have a Korean friend (one that cant speak 100% perfect English), ask
him how to say ? in English. I guarantee he will say How about Korea? But really, this
should be translated to what do you think about Korea?/How is Korea?
can be added to to make it more formal. Also, can be put into the past-tense to ask
about something in the past. But note that even if you are asking about the past, it is not 100%
necessary to use in the past tense:
? How was the exam?/What did you think about the exam? (was it hard/easy?)

What (//)
Now that youve learned all the easy ways to ask questions, lets work on the hard ways. Figuring
out how to ask what in Korean is probably the hardest thing you will come across
(grammatically) for a while. Essentially, there are three ways to say what:
which is an adverb
which is a noun
which is an adjective
It is important that you recognize that each word is a different part of speech (i.e. that one is an
adverb, one is an adjective, and one is a noun). Why is this important? It is important because
you will need to know how to treat those words in sentences.

Adverbs are always easy, so lets start with that first:

can be used similar to /// (other question words that are adverbs). Just plug it
into a sentence:
? = Did you eat?
? = When did you eat?
? = Where did you eat?
? = Why did you eat?
? = How did you eat?
? = What did you eat?
More examples:
? = What did you do last weekend?
? = What do you want to do tomorrow?


is a noun, and must be treated as one in a sentence (which means, you can add / to it).
It is very difficult to explain the difference between and because essentially, they are the
same except for the fact that is a noun and is an adverb. When you use , it simply
replaces the noun in a sentence:
? = Did you eat lunch?
? = What did you eat?
However, when you want to ask what is ___, is rarely used at the end of the sentence
before . For example, instead of saying:
?
It is more common to say:
? = What is this?
If you ever want to ask what is ______ you can use this form. For example:
? = What is your name?

also means what but it is an adjective. What does this mean? This means that you can put
it before other nouns to mean what _____ For example:
? = What work do you want to do? (what job do you want to have?)
? = What movie do you want to see?

Which (/)

In English, we also use the word which to mean essentially the same thing as what:
What movie do you want to see?
Which movie do you want to see?
If you can explain the difference between those two sentences (Im guessing you cant) then you
can explain the difference between and . translates to which, but (like in English)
there is very little difference between and . There is a small difference, but most
Korean people would tell you there isnt just be aware that there is a very very slight difference
between the two.
? = which movie do you want to see?
? = what movie do you want to see?

It is important to know that cannot be used before a word that is a place/location. For
example, you could not say ? You would think that this means which house

do you live in, but like I said, cannot be used before a place/location (a house is a location).
In cases when you want to say which (location) you must use instead of :
? = Which house do you live in?
? Which university do you go to?

How many ()___ (words with counters)

Before I explain how to ask somebody how many ____? as in how many cars do you have?
lets review how to say I have # cars. Remember that you need to use counters in these types of
sentences:
2 = I have 2 cars
3 = I met three friends
2 = I went to school three times yesterday
If you want to ask how many ___? you must include before the counter:
? = How many cars do you have?
? = How many friends did you meet?
? = How many times did you go to school yesterday?
Notice the difference in the placement of the particles. When you say or or
you have essentially created a question word. Just like most other question words, particles are
not typically attached. Nonetheless, if you placed the particles after ___, your questions
would still be understood, but to me it is more natural to place them after the noun that you are
asking about, and not after the counter. Just to show you, these would be understandable, and it
probably just depends on the speaker who says them:
? = How many cars do you have?
? = How many friends did you meet?
Also make sure not to confuse these types of sentences with these similar sentences you learned
in a previous lesson:
() = I have some cars
() = I went to school some times (a few times) yesterday
() = I met some friends
The difference between the first three sentences and the last three sentences is the first three are
questions and last three are statements. Remember when you are asking a question that the
intonation needs to rise at the end of the sentence.
By using ___ you can also ask how old are you? and what time is it?:
? = What time is it?
? = How old are you?
? = How old is your younger brother?

How many _______ (words without counters)

There are a few nouns that do not have counters. One of the most common of these is money
(). In these cases, when you want to ask how much you need to use the combination of
and .
is a very common adverb that means how but is very different from . is a
word that is placed before adjectives and adverbs to mean how (adjective/adverb). For
example:
= how much/many
= how pretty
= how often
= how fast
Note that cannot be used this way. can only be used to ask how you do a verb (how
did you go home?) but is used before adjectives/adverbs.
As indicated before, combining and makes how much/many and can be used to ask
how much money?
? = How much money will you bring?
Remember that is the adverb form of . Which means you could also say this:
? = How much money will you bring?
More examples. Note that is always placed before an adjective or adverb.
? = How often do you study Korean?
? = How pretty is your girlfriend?
? = How well do you play soccer?
You can also put before to ask how much does this cost?
? = How much is this?
Thats it for asking questions in Korean! There was a lot of content in this lesson and the one
before it (Lesson 21). Make sure you review those concepts a lot, because they are very
important!
Before we move on to the next lesson, though, we need to revisit ~ / and ~/ again.

~/ and ~/ Revisited (again)

Now that you have continued to increase your understanding of Korean grammar over the past
few lessons and specifically learned how to ask questions in Korean, I can continue to explain
the nuances between ~/ and ~/.
Assuming that the situation is not set up in a way that would be grammatically appropriate to
compare yourself with somebody else, it would be very awkward for you to say the following:

If you just walked into a room without anybody saying anything to you, or without any prior backstory, and simply said (despite being able to understand you perfectly) it would
sound very awkward to Korean people.
When you use ~/ over ~/, the speaker is putting an enormous amount of stress on the
fact that it was that particular subject that did the action. The speaker isnt comparing anything,
but specifically stressing that it was the subject who/that does the action (or is the adjective) in
the sentence. Again, this is just a nuance, and cannot be expressed in translation to English. The
only way it can be explained is through descriptions.
The reason why sounds weird is because it is just like walking into a room and
saying:
I am the one who ate rice!
Note here that I wouldnt actually translate to I am the one who ate rice. I
would still translate it to I ate. I am using the translation I am the one who ate to show how the
stress can be on the subject.
Nobody would ever say that without anything prompting a person to say it. Instead, you would
just say:
= I ate rice
Note that here, you are not comparing anything. You are also not stating a general fact. You are
just indicating the subject of the sentence. How can I know that nothing is being compared? How
can I know that this isnt just a general fact? How can I know that ~ / is just acting as a plain
old subject marker?
I am going to reiterate what I said in Lesson 17:
This is precisely what causes the confusion amongst foreigners when trying to distinguish the
difference between ~/ and ~/. Both of them can be used to express more than one
nuance. The only way you can distinguish between the particular nuances being used is by
understanding the situation in which they are used.
The whole process of distinguishing ~/ from ~/ is incredibly confusing. I want to share an
important phrase that I came up with that you should always think about when trying to learn the
purposes of these particles:
Its not about understanding them its about understanding when to use them.

At this point I would like to dive a little bit deeper into this purpose of stressing the subject of a
sentence. Like I said, to have this purpose, it would need some sort of back-story indicating why
the speaker would need to stress the subject.
It would be weird in most situations to just say the following as a one-off sentence:

this is just like walking into a room and saying It is me who is a/the student!
However, imagine two students in a class arguing about who gets to sit in the front row (the best
seats in the class). After arguing for a few minutes, the class president can come in and say:
! = I am the class president! ( = class president)
In this situation, the speaker is stressing that it is he/she that is the class president, and therefore
has the power to solve the situation.
I waited until Lesson 22 to talk about this usage because now you know how to ask questions.
The particle ~/, in its usage as a subject stressor, is used when somebody specifically asks
who did a particular action.
For example, in the following dialogue:
? = Who ate the rice?
= I ate the rice
This could also be shortened to only include the subject:
= I did, or me
Another example:
? = Who made the pizza?
= I made it (me)
Notice here that just because (in English) somebody asks a who question doesnt mean that ~
/ must be used on the subject. This is only relevant when the speaker is asking who the
subject was and not who the object was (in effect, when who translates to and not to
).
? = Who likes her?
= I like her
Notice above the question is asking who the subject is
? = Who do you like?
= I like her
Notice above the question is asking who the object is. The use of on the subject takes the
stress off of the subject and just acts as a subject marker.
The same thing can be done with other question words, as long as the question is asking for the
subject. For example:

 ? = Which one is better?

= This one is better
I cant stress enough that all of these nuances are all situational.
A particular sentence with ~/ can make sense in one situation, but could be awkward in
another situation. That same sentence might be awkward with ~/ in one situation, but
appropriate in another situation. In some situations, they could be exactly the same. Ask a
Korean person to distinguish between the following:


They will tell you that depending on the situation they could be exactly the same. It entirely
depends on the nuance that the speaker is trying to make.
Before we finish, I would like to organize everything that weve done and try to describe the
usages of ~/ and ~/ very quickly. Notice that I say try. It is almost impossible to do this
in any form, let alone in just a few sentences. Korean people literally write their doctoral theses
on this topic. Nonetheless, here we go:
~/:

1) To denote a subject of a sentence. For example:

= I ate rice
= My friend ate rice
= I like her

This may or may not have an overlapped meaning with the following purposes:
2) To compare something. For example:
= This mountain is high (but maybe another mountain is low)
. = Apples are red. Bananas are yellow.
3) To state a general fact. For example:
= The Rocky Mountains are high
= Summer weather is good (nice)
= Diamonds are hard
= Apples are red
~/:

1) To denote a subject of a sentence. For example:

= The cat is behind the house
This may or may not have an overlapped meaning with the following purposes:
2) To indicate something based on a recent experience/observation. For example:
= The weather is nice!
= Its raining!
= The apple is blue

3) To stress that the subject does the action (or is the adjective). For example:
? = Who likes her?

 = I like her
! = I am the class president!

4) Placed on objects in sentences that are predicated by adjectives. For example:

= I dont like school
= I like that
= I have a pen

5) Placed on the object before to indicate what something is not. For example:
= I am not a student
= I am not a doctor

6)

Placed on the object predicated by to indicate what something becomes. For

example:
= I want to become a doctor
= I want to become a teacher
In Lesson 14 you also learned about creating passive sentences with verbs that act in the state
of something. For example:
= The door is open
In that lesson, I told you that you should use ~/ on the object that is in the state of something.
I can only assume that the purpose of this is what is described in number 2) above. That is, the
door being open is not some general statement because (obviously) not all doors are open.
Rather, the speaker is referring to a particular door in a particular situation that is open, and thus,
requires the use of ~/. Adding ~/ to (or any other object in that situation) would only
be acceptable in a comparison situation.
One last time before we put this to bed for a while:
Your understanding of this will progress along with your understanding of Korean in general.
Through Lesson 2, 17 and 22 I hope you have a better understanding of this. However, I know
that you will still be confused. Dont worry, that is normal, and I promise your understanding will
evolve as you keep progressing with your Korean.
In our later lessons, you will continue to be introduced to when it is more appropriate to use either
~/ or ~/. For now, focus on what we have learned so far.