Korean Grammar Point
์กฐ๊ธˆ [jogeum] (A little)

Used to indicate a small amount or degree; 'a little', 'a bit'.

Formation

์กฐ๊ธˆ + Verb/Adjective

Examples

๊ธฐ๋ถ„์ด ์•ˆ ์ข‹์•„์š”. ์กฐ๊ธˆ ์‰ด ํ•„์š”๊ฐ€ ์žˆ์–ด์š”.

Gibuni an joayo. Jogeum swil piryoga isseoyo.

I'm not feeling well. I need to rest a bit.

๋ฐฉ์ด ์กฐ๊ธˆ ์–ด๋‘ก์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค. ๋ถˆ์„ ์ผœ์ฃผ์„ธ์š”.

Bangi jogeum eodubseumnida. Bureul kyeojuseyo.

The room is a bit dark. Please turn on the light.

์ง์ด ๋„ˆ๋ฌด ๋ฌด๊ฑฐ์›Œ์š”. ์กฐ๊ธˆ ์ค„์—ฌ์•ผ ํ•  ๊ฒƒ ๊ฐ™์•„์š”.

Jim-i neomu mugeowoyo. Jogeum julyeoya hal geot gatayo.

The luggage is too heavy. I think I need to cut it down a bit.

๊ทธ๋…€๋Š” ํ•œ๊ตญ์–ด๋ฅผ ์กฐ๊ธˆ ์•Œ์•„์š”, ๊ทธ๋ž˜์„œ ๊ฐ„๋‹จํ•œ ๋Œ€ํ™”๋Š” ๊ฐ€๋Šฅํ•ด์š”.

Geunyeoneun hangugeoreul jogeum arayo, geuraeseo gandanhan daehwaneun ganeunghaeyo.

She knows a little Korean, so simple conversation is possible.

Long Explanation

'์กฐ๊ธˆ [jogeum]' is an adverb that describes a small or modest amount or degree. It's similar to 'a little' or 'a bit' in English. It can be used with verbs to reduce intensity, or with adjectives to lessen the strength of a description.

Detailed Grammar Notes

Processing keyword: ์กฐ๊ธˆ [jogeum] (A little)

Korean Grammar Point: ์กฐ๊ธˆ [jogeum] (A little)

1. Introduction

์กฐ๊ธˆ (jogeum) is a Korean adverb meaning "a little," "a bit," or "slightly." It's used to indicate a small amount or degree of something. Understanding how to use ์กฐ๊ธˆ correctly can help you express quantities and nuances more naturally in Korean.


2. Core Grammar Explanation

Meaning

  • ์กฐ๊ธˆ expresses a small amount, degree, or extent.
  • It modifies verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs to lessen their intensity.

Structure

  • ์กฐ๊ธˆ + Verb/Adjective/Adverb

Formation Diagram

[Subject] + [์กฐ๊ธˆ] + [Verb/Adjective/Adverb]

Examples:

  • ๋‚˜๋Š” ์กฐ๊ธˆ ๋จน์—ˆ์–ด์š”.
    • I ate a little.
  • ์˜ค๋Š˜์€ ์กฐ๊ธˆ ์ถ”์›Œ์š”.
    • It's a bit cold today.
  • ์กฐ๊ธˆ ๋นจ๋ฆฌ ๋งํ•ด์ฃผ์„ธ์š”.
    • Please speak a little faster.

3. Comparative Analysis

์กฐ๊ธˆ vs. ์•ฝ๊ฐ„ vs. ์ข€

  • ์กฐ๊ธˆ and ์•ฝ๊ฐ„ (yakkan) both mean "a little," but ์•ฝ๊ฐ„ is slightly more formal.
  • ์ข€ (jom) is the colloquial contraction of ์กฐ๊ธˆ and is used more frequently in spoken Korean.
Adverb Meaning Formality
์กฐ๊ธˆ A little Neutral
์•ฝ๊ฐ„ Slightly Formal
์ข€ A bit Informal

4. Examples in Context

Formal Language

  1. ์กฐ๊ธˆ ๋” ์ž์„ธํžˆ ์„ค๋ช…ํ•ด ์ฃผ์‹œ๊ฒ ์Šต๋‹ˆ๊นŒ?
    • Could you explain it a little more in detail?
  2. ์‹œ๊ฐ„์ด ์กฐ๊ธˆ ์žˆ์œผ์‹ ๊ฐ€์š”?
    • Do you have a little time?

Informal Language

  1. ์กฐ๊ธˆ ์‰ฌ์ž.
    • Let's rest a bit.
  2. ๊ทธ๊ฑฐ ์กฐ๊ธˆ ์ด์ƒํ•ด.
    • That's a little strange.

Written Language

  1. ๊ทธ์˜ ๊ธฐ๋ถ„์€ ์กฐ๊ธˆ ๋‚˜์•„์กŒ๋‹ค.
    • His mood improved slightly.
  2. ๋‚ ์”จ๊ฐ€ ์กฐ๊ธˆ์”ฉ ๋”ฐ๋œปํ•ด์ง€๊ณ  ์žˆ๋‹ค.
    • The weather is getting warmer little by little.

Spoken Language

  1. ์—ฌ๊ธฐ์—์„œ ์กฐ๊ธˆ๋งŒ ๋” ๊ฐ€๋ฉด ๋ผ์š”.
    • You just need to go a little further from here.
  2. ์กฐ๊ธˆ ๋„์™€์ค„ ์ˆ˜ ์žˆ์–ด?
    • Can you help me a little?

5. Cultural Notes

Cultural Relevance

  • Politeness and Softening Requests:
    • Using ์กฐ๊ธˆ can soften a request or statement, making it sound more polite.
    • Korean culture places a high value on humility and indirectness in communication.

Idiomatic Expressions

  1. ์กฐ๊ธˆ๋„ + Negative Verb
    • Not even a little; not at all
    • ๊ทธ๋Š” ์กฐ๊ธˆ๋„ ๋†€๋ผ์ง€ ์•Š์•˜๋‹ค.
      • He wasn't surprised at all.
  2. ์กฐ๊ธˆ์”ฉ
    • Little by little; gradually
    • ์กฐ๊ธˆ์”ฉ ์ ์‘ํ•˜๊ณ  ์žˆ์–ด์š”.
      • I'm gradually getting used to it.

6. Common Mistakes and Tips

Error Analysis

  • Mistake: Overusing ์กฐ๊ธˆ in negative sentences where ์ „ํ˜€ (jeonhyeo) or ํ•˜๋‚˜๋„ (hanado) would be more appropriate.
    • Incorrect: ์ €๋Š” ๊ทธ ๋ง์„ ์กฐ๊ธˆ ์ดํ•ด ๋ชป ํ–ˆ์–ด์š”.
      • I couldn't understand that word a little.
    • Correct: ์ €๋Š” ๊ทธ ๋ง์„ ์ „ํ˜€ ์ดํ•ด ๋ชป ํ–ˆ์–ด์š”.
      • I couldn't understand that word at all.

Learning Strategies

  • Tip: Remember that ์กฐ๊ธˆ can make your Korean sound more natural and polite, especially in requests.
  • Practice: Try replacing ์ข€ with ์กฐ๊ธˆ in sentences to become familiar with formality levels.

7. Summary and Review

Key Takeaways

  • ์กฐ๊ธˆ means "a little" and is used to express small amounts or degrees.
  • It can modify verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.
  • Understanding the nuances of ์กฐ๊ธˆ, ์ข€, and ์•ฝ๊ฐ„ will improve your expressiveness in Korean.

Quick Recap Quiz

  1. Fill in the blank:
    • Can you speak a little slower?
    • ์กฐ๊ธˆ ์ฒœ์ฒœํžˆ ๋งํ•ด ์ค„ ์ˆ˜ ์žˆ์–ด์š”?
  2. True or False:
    • ์ข€ is the formal written form of ์กฐ๊ธˆ.
    • False (์ข€ is the informal, spoken contraction of ์กฐ๊ธˆ)
  3. Translate to Korean:
    • I'm a little tired today.
    • ์˜ค๋Š˜์€ ์กฐ๊ธˆ ํ”ผ๊ณคํ•ด์š”.

Additional Resources

  • Vocabulary List:
    Korean Pronunciation English
    ์กฐ๊ธˆ [jogeum] A little
    ์•ฝ๊ฐ„ [yakkan] Slightly
    ์ข€ [jom] A bit (informal)
  • Practice Sentences:
    • Create your own sentences using ์กฐ๊ธˆ to talk about your daily activities.

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