"남자아이는 키가 큽니다."
Translation:The boy is tall.
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It’s interesting that 키 (height) and 크다 (to be big) are used in the same sentence here.
키 come from Middle Korean 킈 which in turn comes from 크+의.
Saying this sentence more literally: the boy… bigness is big.
You've committed the etymological fallacy, assuming the meaning of a word's root is transparent in the word's modern meaning. Wherever 키 is derived from, it no longer means 'bigness' or 'size' but rather 'height' specifically.
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Interesting. The syntax of this sentence is quite resemble as Japanese ... we say あの少年は背が高い, literally meaning "as for the boy, his height is tall". 背 means primarily back, but in this context no one take it as such.
Yes, you will find that the syntax of Korean and Japanese are nearly identical! Historical linguists are still uncertain as to why that is. There has been no conclusive evidence of a genetic link between the two language families, and although Japan annexed the Korean peninsula from 1910-1945, the oldest Korean texts written in Chinese characters showed this same kind of syntax, so to the best of my knowledge, we still don't know why they're so similar.
For describing people's height, it's common to say, literally, "the size is big." 키가 is size.
Whoops, excuse me, 키 is height you're right. 크기 is size. I confused them :/
Your slight mistake followed by a correction provides me more info than just the correct answer
Makes sense now. So the sentence is saying that the boy's hieght is big, thus, the correct translation should be - tall. Arraso!
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When using tall as in "the boy is tall" we generally use 키가 큽니다 whereas 높습니다 literally refers to the altitude or location above a specific level like when using "this mountain is high above the ground" / "this mountain is in a high altitude" I hope this made it easier to understand the difference:))
The boy is big can imply that the boy is fat, which is not really conveyed by this sentence.
This sentence means "the boy is tall". This is specifically referring to height and nothing else.
