ANSWER: A wife's elder sister, of course.
If 매 (妹) means "younger sister" and 형 (兄) means "elder brother," what does 매형 (妹兄) mean?
ANSWER: Apparently, now they are both correct.
My 1998 edition of "Dong-A's Prime Korean-English Dictionary" defines 벌쓰다 as "be punished; suffer punishment; [of a child] stand in the corner," and the verb 벌서다 is not even listed in the dictionary. So, according to my Dong-A dictionary, 벌쓰다 is a passive verb that means "to be punished," and 벌씌우다 is a transitive verb that means "to punish," including the punishment of having a child stand in a corner.
1998 "Dong-A's Prime" Dictionary
However, my 2014 edition of "Minjung's Essence Korean-English Dictionary" defines 벌쓰다 simply as "to suffer punishment," without mentioning anything about [a child] standing in a corner. Instead, it lists the verb 벌서다 and defines it as the punishment "stand in the corner." In other words, my 2014 Essence dictionary separates the punishment of a child standing in a corner from other punishments. So, if a child or person is punished in any other way besides standing in a corner, the verb 벌쓰다 should be used instead of 벌서다.
ANSWER: Judge for yourself.
Korean Story Lab
ANSWER: No, at least not anymore.
I started learning Korean in 1976 and remember learning sometime back then that 빌다 was used to mean "to borrow," and 빌리다 was used to mean "to lend," but apparently that is no longer the case. Today, 빌리다 is used to mean both "to borrow" and "to lean," so now 돈을 빌리다 can mean either "to lean money" or "to borrow money." Therefore, to avoid confusion, it would probably be better to use 돈을 빌리다 to mean "to borrow money" and 돈을 빌려주다 to mean "to lend money." In fact, the tiny little Underwood/Tuttle English-Korean dictionary I bought back in 1976 says that "to borrow" is 빌리다 and "to lend" is 빌려주다.
ANSWER: It depends. If you are talking about an egg, it is the white inner part of the egg, but if you are talking about an eye, it is the white part of the eye. The 흰 part of the word means "white," but I am not exactly sure what the 자위 part of the word means except that it seems to mean either "color" or "part" when referring to eggs or eyes. In North Korea, 자위 is also used to refer to the color of fruit when it starts to ripen, so maybe at one time in the past 자위 meant "color" since it requires a color adjective in front of it for it to have any real meaning today.
In Korea, the white part of an egg is called 흰자위, and the yellow part, or yolk, is called 노른자위. Both 노랗다 and 노르다 mean "yellow," but when talking about the yolk of an egg, you should say 노른자위, not 노란자위.
When you are talking about the white part of an eye (눈), you should probably say 눈의 흰자위 so that people won't think you are talking about the white part of an egg. Likewise, you could say 달걀의 흰자위 to clarify that you are talking about an egg (달걀), not an eye (눈).
Finally, what does 검은자위 mean? The word 검다 means either "black" or "dark," but when Koreans say 검은자위, they are referring to the colored "iris" of the eye, not to the black "pupil" of the eye. So, the better literal translation of 검은자위 would be "the dark part of the eye" rather than "the black part of the eye," especially since Korean eyes tend to be dark brown, making it harder to distinguish the colored "iris" of the eye from the black "pupil." For the black pupil of the eye, Koreans use the word 눈동자. By the way, 가맣다 or 까맣다 also means either "black" or "dark," but when talking about the colored iris of the eye, you should say 검은자위, not 까만자위.
By the way, instead of 흰자위, 노른자위, and 검은자위, some Koreans say 흰자, 노른자, and 검은자.
ANSWER: After he dies. Until then, you should refer to him as 아버지, and use 아버님 to refer to other people's fathers. You should, of course, use 어머니 and 어머님 in the same way.
"우리 아버님 살아계셨을 때, . . ."
"When my father was alive, . . ."
ANSWER: "Great (한) Alphabet (글)." It is composed of the 6th meaning of 한 and the 2nd meaning of 글.
By the way, the 한 in 한글 is pronounced with a long vowel sound, so /한:글/ or /하안글/.
ANSWER: It depends. If it is pronounced /잠자리/, then it means "dragonfly," but if it is pronounced /잠짜리/, then it means "bed."
ANSWER: One means "unavoidable" or "inevitable," and the other means "have nothing to do."
할일없다, without a space, is an adjective that means "unavoidable," and 할일 없다, with a space, is a noun + adjective that means "have nothing to do." The 할일 is the noun, and the 없다 is the adjective. Since 할일 is a noun, you can use a subject marker and say 할일이 없다 instead of just 할일 없다.
However, the 할일없다, without a space, usually appears in the dictionary 하릴없다, which represents how it is pronounced. When it is pronounced, the ㄹ in 할 moves over to 일, resulting in /하릴/. Some may ask, "But wouldn't the 할일 없다, with a space, be pronounced the same as the 할일없다, without a space? The answer is, "No."
If you want to say, "It is unavoidable," you say, /하릴없따/, but if you want to say, "I have nothing to do," you say, /할릴없따/. In other words, the difference in pronunciation is /하릴/ versus /할릴/. The reason the second one is pronounced as /할릴/ instead of /하릴/ is because a ㄴ was added to it to get 할닐, which then changes to /할릴/ because a ㄴ sound preceded by a ㄹ sound changes to a ㄹ sound.
So, if you want to say, 오늘 별로 할일 없어요 (Today, there is not much to do), be sure to pronounce the 할일 as /할릴/.
ANSWER: "Spring," of course.
Every word in my Korean-English dictionary that starts with the syllable 춘, except for two (춘부장 椿府丈 / 춘사 椿事), are Sino-Korean words that start with the Chinese character that means "spring" (春). And as far as I know, there are no pure Korean words that start with 춘. Also, there are only two other 춘 characters (椿, 杶) in my Chinese character dictionary, and they both refer to the same tree, a Toona sinensis, commonly called Chinese mahogany or Chinese cedar. So, if you see a Korean word that starts with the syllable 춘, it is almost certain to be using the 춘 (春) that means "spring."
Here are the words that start with 춘 in my Korean-English dictionary:
ANSWER: It depends. If the 눈 is pronounced with a long vowel sound /누운/, then it means "a snow-ball fight," but if it is pronounced with a short vowel sound /눈/, then if means "a staring match."
"그 들이 왔을 때, 눈이 내리는 중이었다. 그 후 얼마 지나지 않아 눈싸움이 시작했다. 그들은 '눈보라, 눈보라'하면서 돌아다니었다. 하지만 그들의 눈을 본 사람들이 눈 깜박한 순간에 그 자리에서 죽었다."
By the way, the 눈 meaning "snow" is only pronounced with the long vowel sound /누운/ when it is the first syllable in the word. When it is not the first syllable in the word, then it is pronounced with the short vowel sound /눈/, like the 눈 for "eye." So, the 첫눈 meaning "the first sight" and the 첫눈 meaning "the first snow of the season" are both pronounced the same way, though my 1992 edition "동아" Korean dictionary says differently.
