Going back to the travel survival theme, this week we’re going to learn how to ask where something is so that you can find your way around in South Korea.
The simple phrase is…
어디에요?
(eo-di-e-yo)
어디 – this is a noun that means ‘where’
에 – this is a location marking particle, which just means it describes a location!
요 – this is the formal sentence ending
Practise saying this phrase, and then let’s try using it in a longer sentence. We can learn some useful vocabulary that you can use during your travels!
은행 (eun-haeng) – bank
우체국 (oo-che-gug) – post office
슈퍼마켓 (syu-peo-ma-ket) – supermarket
식당 (shik-dang) – restaurant
지하철역 (ji-ha-cheol-yeog) – subway station
eg.) 은행 어디에요? // Where is the bank?
You can add even more to your sentence to make the meaning clearer. If you want to ask where the nearest bank is, for example, you can say…
제일 가까운
(je-il ga-kka-oon)
This technically means ‘the most near’ but we would obviously translate this as ‘the nearest’.
eg.) 제일 가까운 은행 어디에요? // Where is the nearest bank?
You can use any word you want to in front of the ‘어디에요?’ part to find out where just about anything is, even people. You can also replace the adjective ‘가까운’ with other adjectives like ‘best’, ‘worst’, ‘prettiest’, etc. If you don’t know the word you want to use, just pick up a dictionary! Your sentence doesn’t have to be complicated but if you just can’t remember it, you can always use Google Maps instead… But you’re here because you want to speak Korean, right?!
Practise using your new Korean knowledge in the comments below, and if you have any questions or recommendations of what you’d like to see here next week, we’d love to hear them too.
