After all these lessons, we still haven’t covered how to say “my” in Korean, as in “my book.” We do that with the particle 의.
Use it to connect two nouns together:
my book
Yoona’s house
저의 is more commonly shortened to 제.
We saw this when learning how to say our name:
의 can also connect nouns that are things, and in this way it translates more directly to “of”:
problem of money
flavor of food
You should not use 의 to talk about family or loved ones! Doing this will make you sound too possessive.
This makes it sound like you possess your mom.
So, using “의” is more for talking about things that belong to you.
To talk about loved ones, see below.
To say “our,” we first have to learn how to say “we” in Korean, and that is:
For example:
We (our) wishes
Our house
As you can see, you actually don’t have to add 의 to 우리 here. “우리의” and “우리” have the same meaning, and the latter is more commonly used.
So how do we talk about loved ones in Korean? Use 우리 instead of 제:
My mom
My dad
My wife
My husband
My teacher
What’s going on here??
When talking about someone especially important to them, Koreans use “우리.”
Korean culture places a lot of emphasis on the value of the group or community that a person belongs to, whether it’s their family, school, hometown, etc.
This aspect of Korean culture affects how Koreans behave and speak, and so they use “우리” when referring to people or places they have some relation to.
Don’t make the mistake of assuming someone is polyamorous if you hear them saying “우리 아내”!
See you in the next one.