"The man speaks English well."
Translation:남자가 영어를 잘합니다.
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The infinitive verb 하다 means to do and if you add the adjective 잘 to the front of it, it means: to do X를 well. In Korean, their adjectives can actuallybe verbs. For example a direct translation of this sentence is: Man goods English. But because in English we can't use an adjective as a verb, its hard to understand for native English speakers. Another example might be: 개가 나쁘다 (The dog is bad), but the direct translation in English would be "Dog bads."
잘 means well and 합니다 means to do...so i guess it goes like...you do english well and if modified a little...it can be said as you are goood at english..or maybe you speak English well.
Well, 를 marks it as the direct object what do I speak, but 로 as an instrument with what do i speak.
Theres no word for "speaks" in this sentence. "The man does English well" do you not need 말하다?
Is there a reason, why Korean is "Korean-Land-Language" 韓國語 (한국어), but English only "English-Language" 英語 (영어), although England is 英國 (영국), too? Or can you drop and add 國, as you like?
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That is an astute question ... I will venture an answer. I think 韓 is ambiguous ... only one of several meanings for that character maps to Korea, according to a few references I looked at. Like so many Chinese-derived words, it is the combination of two or more characters that gets you from general concept to specific denotation. And in this case, it's 'close to home' ... in other words, 한 could reference a lot of familiar things (like, isn't there a Han Dynasty, and a Han ethnic group in China, and a Han surname?). So I'm guessing the foreign country references are less ambiguous?
A corollary question I would pose is: You hear 한국말 a lot, but I don't recall Koreans using 미국말 or 영국말. Are these forms correct?
I was thinking the same. It ahould be possible. I wrote "남자는" Duolingo accepted it, but said it was a typo. Both should be correct. I think there is an error in the system.
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Let's take this one step further:
이야기 하다 - story + to do
말 하다 - word/speech + to do
대화 하다 - conversation + to do
So, next you get:
[ ]어 하다 - [country] language + to do
And here, 영국 is the Korean name for England, contracted to just 영 (as 국 means country).
So this sentence really is "The man does England language well."
So, to answer B. StarGirl's question directly, the reference to talking in this sentence is 어 (language).
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Wouldn't it be better if i say "남자가 영어를 잘해요" ? And would it be alright if I say "남자가 영어로 잘해요" ? Please answer me tnx. ◇◇◇
This is a good breakdown. I think moral of the story to remember here too, is thst we dont translate this literally, and instead switch the verb from "to speak" (말다) to "to do" (하다)
What is the difference between (영어를 ) and (영어로) ?? And between (한국어를) and (한국어로)?? Any answer??
The pronuciation for 잘합니다 it is "chal-(h)amnida" or "challamnida"? May somene help me?
Why does it say i have a typo when the correct answer wasn't an option[i don't have a korean keyboard]
이/가 are subject markers, similar to am, is, are. 은/는 are topic markers. It is used to signal that you are introducing a new topic. It is also possible to use 은/는 as subject markers but only if you're introducing a new topic.
Well, both are the word English language 영어 (英語) with a suffix, -를 as a direct object marker, -로 as an instrumental case marker with, using. So 男子가 英語를 잘합니다 would have the structure man (subject) English (object) well-does.
The translation given above says 잘합니다 but when I wrote that in as an answer it said that I was missing a space between 잘 and 합니다. Does anyone have an explanation for this?
It's more correct to have it with the space. But both ways are correct.
"영어를 잘 합니다." and "영어를 잘 말합니다" mean essentially the same thing.
Although, you could look at the one on the left as being more like "is good at English".