This is something I saw coming up in a few words, but unlike others I have covered, it isn’t based on Hanja or Sino-Korean!

 

가락 Meaning; 가락 Words

가락 Words

  • 손가락: fingers ( = hand)
  • 발가락: toes ( = foot)
  • 숟가락: spoon ( = )
  • 젓가락: chopsticks ( = )
  • 가락엿: Korean taffy stick ( = Korean traditional candy)

 

So What is 가락 Meaning?

가락 means something that is long and thin. It can also be used as a unit word that can count objects in that shape.

For chopsticks, 젓가락 is a combination of () + 가락. comes from the Chinese word for chopsticks. becomes because of 사이시옷 (which I’ll get into a bit at the bottom, and maybe a full post on this later!)

For spoon 숟가락 is a combination of + 가락. is an old Korean word for spoons and becomes because of a Batchim rule. You can still see used, more so now it is used when measuring something by a spoonful, like a tablespoon (큰술) and a teaspoon (작은술).

 

Quick Run Through on 사이시옷

This specific rule is a bit tricky for Korean learners. Because it depends on whether a word is a compound word or not. But applies more so to compound words that use a native Korean word, no combinations of two foreign words or Hanja-based words.

So how do you know if a word is one applies to it? Or remember all of them? It’s a lot of memorization, or just going through the process of being corrected, honestly.

Some examples are:

+ 소리 = 빗소리: sound of water
+ = 찻집: tea house
+ = 햇빛: sunlight

 

 

I have an old post about this on my Tumblr, which you may find by looking for this topic, but I wanted to officially move it over here for people to use more easily!


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