Posts Categorized: Vocabulary

에보니의 하루 A Newborn’s Daily Routine

ebonys day WMA young baby doesn’t do very much for herself, so maybe this post would be more accurately titled as ‘A New Mother’s Daily Routine’

Here are two sets of vocabulary for the daily activities of a newborn. Above the pencil line on each caption is the causative version of the verb. You would use this form to describe what you are doing for the baby, or what someone else does for the baby (엄마가.. ) and you can also conjugate these using -아/어주다 (This has already been done in the case of “수건으로 몸을 닦아주다”) and add an ending such as -ㄹ래?, -ㄹ까?, -ㄹ게, to talk to your baby about what you are going to do for them or to offer to do something for them. For example “기저귀 갈아줄까?”

You can see the plain form of the verb (assuming the baby could do it for herself) below each pencil line. Parents often use the plain form of the verb with an ending such as -자 or -할래? or -할까? when speaking directly to the baby about what they are going to do, even if they are doing it for the baby, rather than the baby doing it independently or actively together with the parent. For Example “옷입자!” “목욕할래?”

 

Notes on some of the vocabulary:

At the top I’ve included “깨우다” (to wake <someone> up) I’m definitely not one to wake up Alice except on very urgent occasions, but 깨우다 can also be useful to warn other people when your baby is asleep, for example “애기를 깨우지 마세요”

“눈을 뜨다” is simply to open one’s eyes.

“낮잠” is a nap

“엎드려놓다” specifically refers to placing someone on their stomach. This selection of verbs is specifically for ‘tummy time’ which is a recommended activity for newborn and small babies to strengthen their neck and shoulder muscles before they start crawling and walking. To talk about this to baby, you might prefer something simple like “터미타임하자!” or “놀자!”

“입히다” is to dress someone, “갈아입히다” is to change someone’s clothes.

“갈다” is to change, “채우다” means to fasten or attach, and is the causative of “차다”

 

 

Alice is usually the model for my illustrations on this blog, but since she had already grown too much when I started working on this illustration, I have instead drawn another beautiful Korean-Australian baby, Ebony. I want to say a big thanks to Ebony and her mum, Jez, for their assistance with this post. If you would like to see more of Ebony and Jez’s story, you can follow them on Instagram

If you would like further clarification or example sentences to go with this post, please let me know, I am more than happy to revise and expand it.

 

Little fingers, little hands

gold ring

October is fast slipping through my fingers. This month Han and I celebrated the second anniversary of our wedding ceremony, but unfortunately we also had to farewell my dearly beloved grandmother, which has always been so unimaginable for me that it still doesn’t feel real. Alice is now 18 months and has started jumping on the bed and is simply thriving. Singing, dancing, chatting with anyone who will smile back at her. I will be discussing her progress in Korean language in an upcoming post.

I thought I might provide some more detailed vocabulary relating to hands. If there is one major difference between learning Korean to make friends, and learning Korean to use with a baby, it’s that for speaking with a baby you need a name for EVERYTHING. If you can see it, if you can hear it, smell it, taste it, feel it, experience it, if you can hurt it, it needs a name, and babies are particularly curious, exploring everywhere, always looking back to you to explain the interesting and new.

hands 1

There are several different sets of names for the fingers. I’ve included two (so those in cream and pink are each a set, not left or right specific)

hands 2

 

Talking about animal sounds

animal sounds

The Korean language has a LOT of onomatopoeia (의성어) and mimetic words* (의태어) to learn. In my experience they are difficult to memorise as an adult, but children aquire them easily and they play a major part in children’s speech (even in English, where a child might say “choo choo” instead of “train,” or use a sound word instead of a verb)

It’s beyond the scope of my ability and capacity to teach Alice all of the 의성어 and 의태어, but I still try to regularly choose a few, based on current situations or places or things we encounter a lot, then use them as much as possible to absorb them into our every day dialogue.

I started with animal sounds. As long as you can keep your mind open as you say the sounds (since some of them may not sound convincing to you at first) they are easy to memorise.

At first I would make up a question and answer monologue, for example “돼지가 어떻게 우는지 알아? 꿀꿀! 꿀꿀하고 울어요! 고야이는 어떻게 우는지 알아? …”

Obviously it is best if you can point the animals out in a board book or when you are at a park or zoo.

The baby will slowly learn to copy the sounds and will also begin answering the questions enthusiastically, however I should note, Alice answers “멍!멍!” no matter what animal I ask about, even though she can make “꿀꿀” and “꽥꽥” I think she simply associates the general sound of the question with this answer. When she sees a furry animal, be it dog, cat, tiger or bear, she calls out “멍 멍!” but when she sees any type of bird she will say “꽥꽥”

What I find really interesting in teaching this to Alice, is that the choice of sound word seems to influence the way she hears the sound. I was brought up ‘knowing’ that dogs say “woof woof,” and I hear this very clearly when a dog barks. When I heard that Koreans interpret a dog’s bark as “멍멍” I really couldn’t match the two sounds. Still, I dutifully taught Alice “멍멍” and after a while noticed that beyond just responding to the appearance of a dog with that sound, she also echoes “멍! 멍!” in a loud, drawn out voice imitating a dog that she can only hear and not see. When she does it, it sounds like a dog’s bark.. A particularly cute dog’s bark!

*Where onomatopoeia are words that represent sounds, mimetic words represent physical movements, motions and attributes

아기 데리고 가자! Let’s take baby out!

 

transportforbabies

애기 탈 것
Prams and strollers, though becoming more popular in recent years, are still not commonly used in Korea. Most buses and subway stations are difficult to access with a pram and in my experience, many streets have narrow or congested pathways, sometimes uneven paving. Most parents bring baby along in a carrier, sling, or the traditional Korean blanket wrap, called 포대기. One big difference between Australia and Korea is that Australians tend to let their children ride in strollers til a much greater age than Korean parents.

You’ll notice the name for the infant capsule/seat is taken straight from English. There still doesn’t seem to be any regulation, standard or law about safely restraining infants in the car and often babies are carried on their parents’ laps.

Some related verbs (with example sentences):

데리다 bring along (note: this verb is very seldom used alone, it is usually accompanied by 가다/오다 or similar)

아기를 데리고 공원에 가요

밀다 push

유모차를 밀고 가요

매다 tie/fasten

안전 벨트를 매세요

아기띠/포대기를 매었어요

타다 ride/board

유모차를 타면서 우유를 마셔요

태우다 ride/board – causative form (to cause someone to ride, to put someone aboard something)

아기를 유모차에 태워 주세요

업다 to carry something on one’s back, to piggyback someone

아기가 울어서 업어 주었어요

업히다 to be carried on someone’s back

엄마에게 업혀서 잠이 들었어요

 

a newborn’s first tiny world

newborntinyworldNotes:
배냇저고리 is a Korean newborn outfit. It’s a loose jacket that crosses over at the front with two ties and has pockets at the end of the sleeves which can fold over the hands to keep baby’s hands warm and stop accidental scratching. We were given some as presents before Alice was born and it  was interesting for me because Australian babies often wear a ‘wondersuit’ which is an all-in-one towelling suit, covering everything except the hands and face. Wondersuits are usually designed to be close fitting, so the newborn sized suits I had were much smaller than the 배냇저고리. Alice sprouted through 3 or 4 sizes of wondersuit before ever outgrowing her 배냇저고리.

가제손수건 is a little gauzey cotton square that you can use for many purposes like washing baby’s face, wiping her nose, or you can fold it on the diagonal and tie it round his neck as a dribble bib or tie wet to cool down on a hot day. They come in hundreds of cute prints and designs. A really simple yet great idea, we use them a lot.