National Institute of the Korean Language Online Ganada, "Mobile Korean Language and Culture School"
Teacher's friendly sentence classroom
Make your speech and writing more refined, from good sentence expressions to punctuation.

Our language and social life are made up of countless sentences.
We frequently share our daily experiences and thoughts by writing short posts on social media.
At work, we write all kinds of official documents, such as proposals, plans, reports, and promotional materials, and exchange countless work emails.
Now, writing to clearly express my thoughts and intentions has become a part of my life.
Yet, we still find writing burdensome.
I wrote that I was going to write what I wanted to say, but when I actually wrote the sentences, they were awkward and vague, unlike my intention.


The National Institute of the Korean Language's online Ganada teacher Lee Su-yeon's sentence classroom, "From Good Sentence Expressions to Punctuation Marks," is a book that helps you find solutions when you want to say something exactly like that but keep expressing it in an awkward and incomplete way.
This book is based on questions the author received while working at the National Institute of the Korean Language's online Ganada for 17 years and while teaching as an instructor at the 'Mobile Korean Language and Culture School.'
Among the countless questions, we've carefully selected the ones that people find most confusing and curious about. You can either skim the table of contents and find the ones you're most curious about, or read through them from the beginning.
This book is filled with information you may have previously been unaware of, easily misunderstood, and even practical help in your language life. It will have you exclaiming "Aha!" or "Wow!"

'-go' is used to connect contents that are more closely related in meaning than '-myeo'.
I think that is why it is written as ‘coming and going affection’ and ‘high and low mountain peaks’ and not as ‘coming and going affection’ and ‘high and low mountain peaks’.
'Come-go' and 'high-low' are antonyms, but antonyms differ only in one element and are otherwise the same, meaning they are close.

--- p.27

First of all, let's get rid of the idea that 'as' is used for things and 'as' is used for people.
If you have a fixed idea that qualifications and status are 'people' and means and tools are 'things', you are bound to get confused.
There are contexts where 'people' become means or tools, and there are also contexts where the status or qualifications of 'things' are discussed.
Therefore, we must look at the context and choose between 'as' and 'as'.
(…) In addition, the context is still consistent even if ‘로’ is changed to ‘(을) 그가’, which indicates a means or method.

--- p.31

'Maintain' means "to preserve a certain state or situation as it is or to continue to support it without change."
The word 'maintenance', which implies 'preservation (to protect and preserve well)', does not fit in a negative context.
Because it is a positive object, it is preserved and continues to be maintained without change.
(…) On the other hand, ‘continuation’ means “a certain state continues for a long time.
Or, it means “continuing a certain state for a long time,” and is used in phrases like “continuing price increases” and “continuing studies.”
You can see that it has a different character from 'maintenance'.
The fact that it can be used as 'maintain continuously', such as 'maintain peace continuously' or 'select ○○ as a policy that must be maintained continuously', also shows that 'continue' and 'maintain' are different.

--- p.78~79

It's hard to say which one is better, but the sentence style is better for understanding the content, and the old style is better for expressing it simply.
So, when writing a report, if you want to simply write down the contents of a sub-item or table, the old method is often chosen.
However, if you only compose it in the old way to make it simple, it will increase fatigue when reading, so it is better to use both methods appropriately.
However, it is important to use the final tense consistently within an item.

--- p.134

The writer knows the context of what he is writing, so he can read and understand even if essential sentence elements are omitted, but other people cannot understand accurately if essential sentence elements are omitted.
You have no choice but to guess the meaning or just pass it by without knowing it.
If you want to write clear sentences with corresponding sentence elements, refer to the sentence pattern information in the Korean dictionary.
Below are the sentence patterns and meanings of 'participate (intransitive verb)' and 'create (transitive verb)' from the National Institute of the Korean Language's Korean Dictionary.
(…) We can see that ‘participate’ responds with the ‘e’ component (adverb) in addition to the subject, and ‘create’ responds with the ‘eul’ component (object) in addition to the subject.
By using the Korean dictionary in this way, you can check the sentence elements that correspond to the predicate and write well-structured sentences.

--- p.146~147

Since 'thing' is an abstract word that refers to 'things, events, phenomena', etc., it is used a lot.
But if 'thing' is used too much, it sounds unnatural.
If you can change it to another expression, it means that 'thing' does not necessarily have to be used.
When judging whether 'thing' is used appropriately, try omitting 'thing' or replacing it with another word.
If there is no problem in replacing 'geot' with another expression, or if it is not abstract but concrete, and the context still makes sense even if 'geotda' is omitted, then 'geot' is not a necessary word in that context.

--- p.150~151

Punctuation marks are tools designed to clearly reveal the structure of sentences in writing or to easily convey the writer's intention.
Make active use of punctuation to express yourself in concise and clear sentences without ambiguity.
Many people don't realize that there are punctuation rules, but they are very well established.
If you go to 'National Institute of the Korean Language website, Language Standards - View Language Rules', you can see the usage of various punctuation marks in detail.

--- p.202

In official documents, you should use 'appropriate honorifics'.
It is difficult to say exactly what the scope of 'appropriate' is, but I think '-o-' and '-dri-da', which indicate politeness, are a little more than appropriate in public documents.
In public documents, it is appropriate to use the most respectful '하다체(-ㅂ니다/-습니다)' for the other person, and use the subject respectful '-시-' for the other person, to express things like 'I am reporting this' or 'I would like to implement this, so please support me.'
Honorifics are largely influenced by the subjective perception of the other person, but public documents are objective, so you should use an appropriate amount of honorifics that is neither excessive nor insufficient.

--- p.248