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- "아이는 키가 작습니다."
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It's common to use 키가 (size) to talk about the height of people. 키가 커 (he's tall) / 키가 작아 (he's short).
2238
I think it's literally something like "As for the child, the height is small." In itself, this way of expressing height is understandable. I'm just wondering if other adjective pairs can be done this way as well--such as for distance, or even for more subjective evaluations (e.g. can "far away" be rendered as "the distance is big," or can "delicious" be rendered as "the taste is good"?).
는 makes it the topic and so it can be taken as being about children in general.
- 133
짧 is small, it could be used in a 3 dimensional way but 작 is more like short, when we're talking about the height of a person or an object or even the length
- 69
at the beginning of the lesson we are told that this word here, spelled the way it is in Hungul means "are little" or "are small", but in this sentence the word short is given to be translated and the word they have previously given us for "short" is spelled as a double J , a over l and b then sibnida. the inaccuracies like this make it hard to learn effectively
키 means height. Literally, the sentence says that the kid's height is small.
"키가 작습니다." could apply to someone who is short and chubby, not just to someone who is small.
Is there a difference between 'short' and 'small'? Because my answer was corrected to short and i don't know why...
짧다 (짧습니다) means "short" 작다 (작습니다) means "small"
키가 means "height"
This sentence literally translates to "A child's height is small.", which is the same as "A child is short."
If we say 아이는 작습니다, does it translate to "A child is small." as opposed to short?
Yes. By adding 키가, it means that the child's height is small (which means that the child is short). But without that, it would mean that simply the cold is small.
Why can't 'A child's height is short' be accepted? I now realise it's an unnatural sentence + isn't "아이의 키가 작습니다" but wouldn't it count as a direct translation count?
Both because in a literal translation, 작다 doesn't mean short (it's small) and because in English, the height of a person isn't what is short, rather the person is short.
Short and small are different.
짧다 means "to be short" 작다 means "to be small"
But in "아이는 키가 작습니다.", it literally says "A child's height is small.", which is the same idea as saying "A child is short."
작다 (작습니다) means small.
키가 means height.
The sentence says that the child's height is small, which means that the child is short.
