Chapter 12: Sino-Korean Numbers — From Phone Calls to Prices
In Korean language, it doesn't just have two number systems. Those systems have sub-rules . Even the zero changes depending on context. 영 (yeong) when you're being formal or mathematical. 공 (gong) when you're reading a phone number aloud. Why Two Systems? Quick Recap from Chapter 11: Native Korean (하나, 둘, 셋): Warm, personal, used for counting people, age, hours. Sino-Korean (일, 이, 삼): Formal, technical, used for dates, money, phone numbers, mathematics. Why? Because a thousand years ago, Chinese culture flowed into Korea and brought its numbers with it. Korean didn't discard its own numbers, it kept both systems. Now they coexist, each serving a different purpose. When you're telling someone your age, you're intimate: "스물한 살" (native Korean, twenty-one years old). But when you're writing it on a form? Formal: "이십일 세" (sino-Korean, twenty-one years). This is what makes Korean both ancient and modern. Sino-Korean numbers are the language ...
