# 나처럼 해봐요



## xBlackWolfx

Hello, I've decided to try and study Korean.

Now first off, I'm a complete beginner. I have a fair amount of experience with Japanese (whose grammar appears to be quite similar). And I have read some things about Korean grammar.

Anyway, what enticed me about this line (Na na nacheoreom haebwayo) is that it supposedly translates as 'do it like me'. I was curious how this actually works in Korean, because I have no idea how to express such a concept in Japanese.

I've tried looking up haebwayo up in a dictionary, but I can't get any results. I know Korean is a highly agglutinating language (in lay-man's terms, that means it uses a lot of affixes). I'm fairly certain the final -yo is just a verb ending, and na is the word for 'I'. I can't find what the rest of it means though.

I would like to have a gloss translation of this, so I can see what's going on. I've been studying linguistics on my own for years and years, so I'm quite familiar with linguistic terminology. I'm actually looking at an IPA chart to figure out how to pronounce Korean, because I find that to be a lot more reliable method of learning a language's phonology than the typical comparison method (i.e. this letter sounds like X sound in English).

I know this may be a bit advanced for a beginner, but I would still like to have it explained to me just to sate my curiosity.


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## actively

Hi, as a fellow learner of Korean, I'm pretty sure the 한글 (hangeul) version of the sentence you are looking for is the following:
"[나] 나처럼 해봐요."
Yes, it is a bit confusing when you first see it, but it roughly translates to "do what I do [follow in my example]," or literally translated, "do it like me."
To break down each part, as you have mentioned that Korean is an agglutinating languageㅡ

"나" as you said, means "I," but in cases where "I" is the _topic_ of the sentence, not the subject (it is usually followed by the topic marker "는," similar to "*は*" in Japanese, to give you a better idea of this with your background knowledge of Japanese, but in this case, 나 accompanied by 처럼 just means "like me"). It is repeated twice for some reason, which is why I placed it in square brackets.

"처럼" is the equivalent of "like" in English, as stated earlier.

"해" is the word for "do," but paired with "봐" (which means to see) in "해봐" sort of implies to "attempt to do it (see to it?)"
"요" is actually an honorific sentence ending, and is part of the "polite" level - used in conversation with an older person, a fellow adult, a stranger, etc. I am not sure of the Japanese equivalent to this as I do not possess extensive knowledge on the Japanese language; however, I am told that the honorific speech levels in both languages are quite similar


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## xBlackWolfx

Its the first line of a k-pop song, which is why 'na' is repeated multiple times. And yes, I am aware that people don't always right songs the same way they actually talk. I've noticed they tend to repeat words a lot in k-pop. I've also noticed they tend to omit the postpositions/particles/case endings (whatever you prefer to call them) even when the song is in Japanese, even though native speaking Japanese would never do that. Supposedly the Koreans are a bit more liberal with grammar than the Japanese.

The honorific system of Japanese is relatively basic compared to that of Korean. There's only four levels of politeness, but only two are commonly used. In fact, native speakers normally don't know how to use the higher two outside of a few set expressions. Mostly the polite form is made just by adding -masu onto the end of a verb, or ending the sentence in desu if it doesn't end in an actual verb. The pronoun system is quite complex, there's over half a dozen words for 'I' alone, and the same for 'you'. Though Japanese see it as rude to refer to someone with a pronoun when you're talking directly to them; you're supposed to address them by name. As a consequence, most forms of 'you' are meant to be disparaging with the notable exception of 'anata', which exists solely to be used where one can't use the person's name. The plural form is actually used more often than the singular. I think you only really see the singular form in songs. Also the pronoun system is highly unstable. The exact meaning of each pronoun changes from year to year and new pronouns may even be added in. I hear its become popular in Japan for males to refer to themselves with 'jibun', which supposedly just means 'self'. Because of this, books teaching Japanese don't really bother to cover it much since it changes from year to year.

Anyway, thank you for explaining it to me. I did kind of find it on my own, after I figured out you have to enter in Korean text in hangul when using an online dictionary. As for 해봐, personally I just interpreted it as meaning 'see how its done' or 'watch me do it' in this context.


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## mink-shin

I'm native Korean but I think I am beginner of English. So I don't know if I could teach you, but I'll do my best. Because there're so many people who's helped me and taught me in 'English only forum'

As you said, Korean is a highly agglutinating language. So I think that knowing all the morphemes of any sentence can help you understand meaning of the sentence.

The sentence ‘나처럼 해봐요' contains 7 morpheme, such as '나', '처럼', '하', '-여', '보', '-아', '요'.

I will tell you all that i know about them. Because... as i said, knowing the morphemes, you'll get the meaning. I guess.

i) '나'
It is pronoun meaning 'I'. According to which post-position(we don't use preposition but post-position) follows '나', '나' with the post-position could mean either *'I' or 'me' or 'my'*
ex )* 나 + '는' *+ 모른다.= *I* don't know
* 나 + '와'* + 함께 팀이 되고 싶은 사람 있어? = Is there anybody who wants to be a team with *me*?
*나 + '의' *+ 것을 건드리지마 = Don't touch *my *thing.

ii) '처럼'
It is post-position meaning *'like'*. Following '나', '처럼' make '나처럼' be an adverb phrase. So we call '처럼' as '부사격조사', which means post-position making adverb.
So '나처럼' means 'like me'

iii) '해' which is abbreviated form of '하-' + '-여' (from '하다')
'하' is stem of the word '하다', '-여' is suffix which is link between main predicate and auxiliary predicate.
'하다' in this case is main predicate and it means* 'Do'*

iv) '봐' which is abbreviated form of '보-' + '-아' (from '보다')
'보' is stem of the word '보다', '-아' is suggestion ending.
'보다' in this case is auxiliary predicate and it means *'try'.*

v) '요' is auxiliary post-position which could make Predicate honorific.
'나처럼 해봐요' makes sense without '요', if you don't have to use honorific language. That's why it's not ending but just auxiliary post-position.
'나처럼 해봐' still makes sense. It means 'Try to do *it* like me'.
Because omitting object in this sentence, there's no equivalent for the word '*it*'.


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## xBlackWolfx

So, 해봐요 contains 5 morphemes, because two of the syllables are actually contractions? Oh boy, what have I got myself into?

And I'm finding it shockingly difficult to find free information online. I've never had that problem with Japanese. I mean, even my local library doesn't have a book on the Korean language. I don't know what I'm going to do. I've checked on this forum for 'useful links' or whatever its called, but all I found useful was a wiki book. I don't know how far that will get me.


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## Hit Girl

In terms of morphemes, I think it's three - 해/봐/요 (do/try/요). Not sure whether you can count 요 as a morpheme but the maximum possible number is 3, I think. Then again I don't know linguistics.

Since you said you have some experience with Japanese and it's easy for you to find information, I'd like to point out that 해봐요 can be duplicated in Japanese literally, word for word, with the exactly same meaning and sentiment:

して/みる/よ (해/봐/요). 

して is, as you probably know, a form of する.
みる (to see), although it's the infinitive, also works as an imperative form in casual speech. Then よ softens it, just like the Korean 요. 

Anyways, maybe you can search the Japanese "verb+てみる" structure as a proxy to understand 해봐요.


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## elroy

xBlackWolfx said:


> I just interpreted it as meaning 'see how its done' or 'watch me do it' in this context.


 No, as others have said, it's "try to do it."  This usage of 보다 has nothing to do with "seeing," semantically.

Another example:

한국에 가봐요? = Have you been to Korea? ("tried/experienced going")


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