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I'm assuming you're talking about 끊다 vs 삶다? Basically 삶다 means "to put into a boiling liquid", so you would 삶다 an egg or meat maybe. 끊다 on the other hand means "to boil (by itself)". So you could say 물이 끊는다 or 커피가 끊은다, but you can't 끊다 something.
That being said, there is a third verb, a transitive version of 끊다, namely 끊이다 "to make boil". The difference between 끊이다 and 삶다 doesn't seem to be very clear cut, even to some Koreans. From what I can gather, you would use 끊이다 if the boiling liquid is itself an integral part of the dish. So you would 끊이다 coffee or a stew. On the other hand, if the water (or whatever it is) is just there to boil the actually important stuff in and is thrown away afterward (for example if you boil an egg you don't serve it in the water), you use 삶다. (Source: http://ohmykorean.com/?p=930)
Very good explanation. But I'd like to point out one thing.
"끊(ㄴㅎ)다" means cut. ex) 실을 끊다. 리본을 끊다.
"끓(ㄹ ㅎ)다" means boil. ex) 라면이 끓다. 물이 끓다. (intransitive verb)
You can use this word as a transitive verb.
아빠가 라면을 끓이다. 삼촌이 물을 끓이다.
Thank you for an incredibly helpful answer! It seems much like what we'd say in Chinese: 煮 for things that you'd actively cook and 烧开 for things that boil by themselves
Because 'ramyeon' is not an English word. The word that was imported into English is the Japanese one, and we are translating from Korean to English.
Because "ramyeon" isn't an English translation, nor is it even a word used in English. As stated above, the general population already associates the dish with the Japanese word "ramen", regardless of the actual country of origin. We've assimilated it into our vocabulary.
