# rules on spacing



## vientito

I never really have the chance to study the rules underlying spacing between words in Korean.  I have a few questions:  (1) is there existing ambiguity about rules on spacing?  say, two scholars writng a passage would invariably arrive at the same passage with exact same spacings? (2) compound verbs consisting of two or three simple verb units, should space be inserted in between them? (3) I don't seem to see punctuation such as comma used much in practice.  are they simply redundant sometimes? (4) don't ordinary folks prone to make mistakes about spacing as well?


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## terredepomme

Spacing is arguably one of the trickiest part of modern Korean grammar and very few Koreans succeed in employing the rule impeccably. It is because the convention is very modern, less than a hundred years old, and it does not necessarily follow the natural rhythm of Korean speech.
What I would suggest is that, unless you want to academically excell in the language, such as studying in a Korean university, don't care about it too much. People will understand you even if you space some things incorrectly. Just follow your intuition, like everyone else does.


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## Superhero1

1. If two conservative Korean-language scholars write the same passage, the spacing will be identical. (Definitely the same.)
2. Give me an example in Korean. There are systematic rules, including an exceptional clause.
3. We have a rule in using commas. However, despite satisfying the conditions, it's not necessarily compulsory.
4. In general, ordinary people make mistakes but it is a sign of illiteracy.


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## kenjoluma

The lack of proper education is also the key to understanding why this is such an issue in Korean language, as well. While spending so much time, budget and energy on teaching foreign languages in elementary school, we don't really care to teach proper Korean grammar and orthography in school. Under this peculiar situation, don't be surprised if you encounter with some Korean politicians claiming Korean orthography protocol should be reformed just in order to describe better English local pronunciations. They are serious. And their approval ratings are quite high no matter what, by the way.

One more cultural tip for you:
When Koreans make spelling mistakes in their own language, they love to make excuse like this: Korean orthography protocol changes too often! 
In this distress, you can gently point out as a foreigner that Korean orthography was first announced in 1933, and revised in 1988. That's all. There was a small revision in 2011 but it's not worth a mention.


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## wonlon

I turned the pages of my grammar books, two mentioned about what is called 어절[語節], in English seemed to be translated as "word segment" (from web). Wikipedia also mentions about this: http://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/어절. I think 어절 is the answer for the rule of spacing.

They say roughly the same thing, let's look at wiki:

*어절은 대개 띄어쓰기의  단위와 일치하며, 체언에  조사가  붙거나, 어미가 어간에  붙어서 이루어지기도 한다. 예를 들어 '우리는 오늘 동해로 간다'는 문장은 4개의 어절로 이루어져 있다.

(my translation)
Word segments are generally identical to the spacing of sentence units (separately written units in a sentence); they are composed of, for example, a noun attached by a postposition, a word stem attached by word ending. For example, '우리는 오늘 동해로 간다'는 문장은 4개의 어절로 이루어져 있다. is composed of 4 word segments.*


But not just a noun plus a postposition. There can be more than this, as one of my grammar book ”韓國語語法” (by 劉沛霖) writes:

(my translation from Chinese)
*A word segment can be formed by one word or a combination of several words... e.g.
나에게마저도(1) 차례졌다(2).
Segment(2) is composed of one word (plus ending), and (1) is composed of 4 elements 나 and postposition 에게, 마 저 and 도.
*
By the way, I want to learn Korean as best as I can, so as to reach the potential I am endowed to reach, though may not be academically high.

Hope it helps, *vientito*, who speaks Cantonese, too.


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