Section 05 · 숫자
Numbers
Two number systems, and when each one shows up.
Korean uses two number systems in parallel. Which one you reach for depends on what you're counting, not how big the number is. This trips up almost every learner for a few weeks and then never again.
The two sets
Sino-Korean comes from Chinese. You use it for anything official, measured, or read digit by digit: money, dates, phone numbers, addresses, minutes, percentages, math.
Native Korean is the older, homegrown set. You use it for counting people, things, and animals in everyday speech; for telling age; and for the hour part of the clock. It only goes up to 99. From 100 on, Sino takes over everything.
| Number | Sino-Korean | Native Korean |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||
| 2 | ||
| 3 | ||
| 4 | ||
| 5 | ||
| 6 | ||
| 7 | ||
| 8 | ||
| 9 | ||
| 10 |
When each one shows up
Sino-Korean appears when the number is labelling something, not counting it.
- Money: 5,000 won is .
- Dates: March 3rd is .
- Minutes: "thirty minutes" is .
- Phone numbers: zero is read as , the rest are Sino.
Native Korean appears when you're counting actual objects or expressing age.
- Two people: .
- Three books: .
- Twenty-one years old: .
The hybrid clock
Telling time is the only place the two systems share a sentence. The hour is native, the minutes are Sino.
2:30 is : 두 (native two) + 시 (hour) + 삼십 (Sino thirty) + 분 (minutes).
Next we'll look at the little words that glue all of this together: the particles that tell you who did what to whom.