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- "싼 음식은 비싼 음식보다 뜨겁습니다."
27 Comments
Yes, it's used to make comparisons. You can also write it as ...더 뜨겁습니다 or without the 더
Yes, 보다 means "more than" whatever it is attached to... It is a suffix attached to the end of the object.
Not sure if this helps but to my understanding 음식 means 'food' 음식보다 means 'than food'
The English translation makes no sense. I get that the suffix here is "than", but what the hell does this sentence even mean? By hotter do they mean popular and fast?? Someone please explain, because I just don't get it.
Me neither. I seriously doubted my translation but it was correct on first try.
The word order of this sentence confuses me. Cheap food expensive than food hot is what it is when broken down. Why does the adjective hot not go in front of the word it describes?
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Remember that what we might call an adjective is in reality a verb - a word meaning "to be hot" - not the word "hot" in isolation. And since Korean is a Subject-Object-Verb language, the verb must come last.
The particle -보다 indicates comparison.
In English, comparisons are quite complicated: Cheap food is hotTER THAN expensive food.
You had to change your adjective from one form to another (hot -> hotter) and add the word "than" to your sentence. And sometimes it's even weirder!
So Korean keeps it simple. Let's go back to Subject-Object-Verb order:
- What's hotter? Cheap food. Great! Put it at the start of your sentence.
- What's it hotter than? Expensive food. Awesome. Put that next and tack on your handy-dandy -보다 particle, to indicate comparison.
- And then your verb, as always, goes last.
Platyfrog's explanation is great, but just to put it a different way by breaking down the word meanings in order:
싼 음식은 비싼 음식보다 뜨겁습니다
싼 음식은 = regarding cheap food, 비싼 음식보다 = compared to expensive food, 뜨겁습니다 = it is [more] hot (i.e. hotter) to the touch.
The word 더 ("more") is left out here because it's implied by the comparison. If you didn't think the listener would be able to infer thaf from context, you could be more precise by saying "보다 더 끄겁습니다." Or if you wanted to say it's less hot, you would say "보다 덜 끄덥습니다."
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cheap+ food + expensive+than food+is hot = Cheap food is hotter than expensive food. ?! I would like that someone explain me the structure of the sentence and why the words are put this way ?
