The Importance of 띄어쓰기(spacing)
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008I’m sure you are all aware that 띄어쓰기(spacing) in Korean is just as important as in any other language (with the exception of Japanese and Chinese where spacing isn’t necessary). I’d like to introduce some of the most commonly mentioned examples of the confusion that spacing errors can bring about. ^_^
The first one.
Let’s say you want to write,
“My father is going into the room.”
- father = 아버지
- room = 방
- to go into = 들어가시다 (honorific)
So this becomes
아버지가 방에 들어가십니다.
But
if you change the spacing a little bit and write,
it becomes
“아버지 가방에 들어가십니다.”
(My father is going into the bag.)
Haha.
And here’s another interesting example 
Let’s say you want to say “I bought a tree tonight.”
- tree = 나무
- buy (and come) = 사오다
- tonight = 오늘밤
So this is correctly written in Korean as ”
오늘밤 나무 사왔어.”
But if you make a mistake in spacing and write
오늘밤 나 무 사왔어.
It means “I bought some radish tonight.”
And if you write
오늘 밤나무 사왔어.
It means “I bought a chestnut tree.”
These are only some very common examples, and I believe you will experience a lot of spacing-related funny mistakes as you keep studying Korean. But no matter how many mistakes you make and no matter how many times you get corrected on spacing, don’t despair 띄어쓰기 is often a headache for Korean people too And if you want to get some instant help from an automated robot on the internet, you can go to the Naver LAB page here. http://s.lab.naver.com/autospacing/
Thanks for reading!
Posted by Hyunwoo in Humor in Korean |
June 11th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
That is really interesting. I was just thinking about that. When i type in Korean, I usually don’t pay any attention to spacing at all because it’s really weird the way the character is still highlighted so I have the habit of pressing space after each finished character instead of just continuing..then i have to go back and fix everything I guess it could get a little confusing!^^
June 11th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
How amusing! If my command of Korean were better, I could really have some fun with spacing
Spacing is still a little frustrating for me but it’s getting better. When I first started learning Korean I was putting too many spaces between characters just like you are describing, Stephanie. I thought it was normal until another student tactfully pointed it out. I stopped putting so many spaces in so the text would look correct…but I secretly wanted to keep them in so I could just *see* all the words, heh!
June 12th, 2008 at 6:26 am
Hyunwoo!
Those are very nice pictures, I’m going to add them to my collection if you don’t mind! Keep up this great blog
S_R_C
June 18th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Great blog post… But it still seems that Korean is a little less stringent than English when it comes to spacing. For example, none of my Korean co-workers could determine which is the more correct way of writing this sentence:
오늘밤까지 제출해주세요
오늘밤까지 제출해 주세요
There are many similar examples, usually involving “compound verbs,” where 주다 or 보다 is added.
June 18th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Yea, spacing is definitely difficult in Korean. I think the rules are really relaxed. And I agree with Daniel. When I ask about spacing, most people don’t know the correct answer!
June 18th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Yeah Daniel, compound verbs have always given Korean people a headache when they want to write - but the basic principle is to add space between the verb parts
BUT you can put together the verbs that are used together VERY often. But then who decides which verbs are used together ‘very often’? 
haha.