"우리들의 할머님께서 노래하십니다."
Translation:Our grandmother sings.
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In Korean, family members are always "ours", never "mine". They are the family's, not the individual's. Such is their vision of family bonds!
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What I don't understand is why they use 우리 for wife and husband too. They didn't marry the whole family so they can't be the family's wife/husband
It is.
In Korean, it will be 우리 for both, hence the ambiguity in English. Both should be accepted.
Does the presence of the plural marker (우리들의 rather than just 우리) make it specifically "our" in this case? Or is that also random?
the 들 makes it plural, so then it always means "our". In fact, my understanding is that 우리 always means "our" its just that in Korea some things are said using our - like our grandparents (the family's grandparents), our country (all Koreans' country), etc. - that we would use "my" for in English.
Does the addressee have to be included in the 우리들? If speaking to an outsider, would you say 저희 instead? Or perhaps drop the 들?
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우리들 is used to distinguish "our" from "my", implying that the audience is included.
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우리 is used as both "our" and "my" when referring to family and country. It is seen as less exclusive and less childish.
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제 is used as "my", carries an exclusive connotation, and seen as more childish when referring to family and country.
For example: 우리 학교 and 제 학교 can both mean "my school. However the latter implies that the school is mine but not yours (thus exclusive). The former does not imply anything about whether the school in question is the audience's school as well.
You may have noticed that it says, "우리들의", not just "우리의".This makes it clear that it is our, not my.
What is the usage of the ~ㅁ께서 particle here? Never seen it before. Can we also use 할머니가 or 할머니는?
Im not sure where the ㅁ comes from, but 께서 is just the honorific subject particle. You can read more at the very end of this lesson:
https://www.howtostudykorean.com/unit-5/lessons-101-108/lesson-105a/
How to distinguish between 'sing/song' and 'yellow' when both use '노래' as main term?
Like any other homonym form, you differentiate typically by context of the sentence. With "song" and "yellow", keep a few things in mind:
- 노래 = "song", noun
- 노래하다 = 노래를 하다 = "to sing", verb
- 노란색, 노랑 = "yellow", noun
- 노랗다 = "to be yellow", adjective
Note that 노래하다 is a 하다 verb so the noun stem can separate from the verb stem, especially with verb negation. Also note that 노랗다 at the casual speech level is conjugated to 노래. The distinction can be made here by looking at how that word is used: as a noun or as a sentence finisher.
ok then since
1) it is random 2) since 우리 is not wrong in this sentence and most of the exercices of this section in duolinguo 3) and since there is no context in the duolingo sentences...
WHY is "우리 할머님께서 노래 하십니다" wrong when we have to translate from the English sentence into Korean?????
Whats the difference between 노래합니다 and 노래하십니다? Why is the latter used here? Or is it both accepted?
While 노래합니다 and 노래하십니다 both translate to "sing," the latter is more respectful with the inclusion of the honorific in the conjugation. You typically add honorifics in your conjugations when you are speaking to and about people higher in the social register than you are, such as your elders.
See: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/25119233?comment_id=45780974
The honorific form of 노래하다 is used to honor the person who is performing the action.