One of the best ways to learn a language is through hobbies and songs, so today we’ll gonna learn the words in the lyrics of my one of favorite songs, “gold dust” by NCT 127.
The lyrics of ‘gold rust’ use a lot of inherited word of Korean which I think makes the songs more beautiful.
The lyrics of ‘gold dust’ are all in Korean, so there’s a lot to study, but this time we’ll focus on nouns.
The inherited word of the Korean language is the vocabulary excluding Chinese characters and foreign words.
In other words, it’s pure Korean.
Korean Words in ‘gold dust’
Let’s start studying Korean words with NCT 127
달빛
| Word | Pronunciation | In English |
|---|---|---|
| 달빛(dalbich) | Moonlight |
밤
| Word | Pronunciation | In English |
|---|---|---|
| 밤(bam) | Night |
길
| Word | Pronunciation | In English |
|---|---|---|
| 길(gil) | road |
바다
| Word | Pronunciation | In English |
|---|---|---|
| 바다(bada) | Sea |
얼굴
| Word | Pronunciation | In English |
|---|---|---|
| 얼굴(eolgul) | Face |
표정
| Word | Pronunciation | In English |
|---|---|---|
| 표정(pyojeong) | Facial expressions |
손
| Word | Pronunciation | In English |
|---|---|---|
| 손(son) | Hand |
compound words(합성어)
The reason I chose the word “moonlight” is to introduce you to the concept of “compound words” in Korean grammar.
The word ‘moonlight’ is actually a noun made by combining two nouns, ‘moon’ + ‘light’, which is called a ‘compound word’ in Korean.
When two nouns are allowed to be combined into a single noun, it’s because they’re already used by many people.
However, not all nouns can be combined, so nouns that are not compound words should be separated by a space.
| Word | Noun + Noun | Pronunciation | In English |
|---|---|---|---|
| 봄비(bombi) | 봄(Spring) + 비(Rain) = 봄비 | Spring Rain | |
| 별빛(byeolbich) | 별(Star) + 빛(Light) = 별빛 | Starlight | |
| 눈물(nunmul) | 눈(Eye) + 물(Water) = 눈물 | Tear | |
| 발소리(balsoli) | 발(Foot) + 소리(Sound) = 발소리 | Footstep |
The reason I introduced compound words is because you’ll be learning a lot of Korean words, and it’s easier to memorize words if you know the rules of compound words.
There are other rules for compound words besides the ‘noun’ + ‘noun’ rule, so I will let you know other rules in the future lesson.
I’ll be posting more Korean lessons with K-Pop songs.
Thanks for reading, see you next time!
