You finished this day
Before and after you eat
Today covers the two phrases that bracket every Korean meal, and the words for how food tastes. By the end you can thank whoever cooked or paid, say whether something is spicy, sweet or salty, check a dish before you order it, and say you are hungry or full.
The two meal phrases
Say the first before you pick up your spoon and the second when you put it down:
The two phrases are one sentence in two tenses. 잘 means 'well', 먹 is the stem of 먹다 'to eat', and the difference is one small piece in the middle: 겠 looks ahead, 었 looks back. Both then end in the formal -습니다 that 감사합니다 uses on day 1, which is why they sound a notch more formal than the rest of today. What they actually express is thanks, so you say them to the person who made or paid for the food, not to yourself.
How it tastes
Taste words are verbs, so each one is a complete sentence on its own:
English says 'it is spicy', with an adjective after 'is'. Korean has no separate adjective here: 매워요 on its own already means 'is spicy', a describing verb in the same -요 form as 있어요. That is why one word makes a whole sentence, and why you never add 이에요 to it. The subject is dropped because it is obvious you mean the food in front of you. Add day 11's 좀 to hedge: 좀 매워요, 'it's a bit spicy'.
Checking a dish, and how you feel
A question worth asking, a word worth avoiding, and your stomach:
Asking 안 매워요?, 'it's not spicy?', rather than 매워요?, 'is it spicy?', tells the server which answer you are hoping for, so they know you want something mild. Listen carefully to the reply. Korean 네 agrees with the question as asked, so 네 here means 'right, it is not spicy', which is good news, and 아니요, 좀 매워요 means it is. English 'yes' and 'no' follow the facts instead, which is why this catches English speakers out for months.
Carry over, from earlier days
📋 Today’s words 12
Check yourself
8 questions. Get 5 right to finish the day.