년 vs 해 | How to say "year" in Korean

안녕하세요! Koreanstudyjunkie입니다. But you can call me Junie.

I'm here to bring to your attention another slightly confusing word pair in Korean. (Click here to learn about why Korean sometimes has 2 words for one thing) In this case, Year in Korean has 2 different words.

But what's the difference? Is there one?

년 is SINO KOREAN (Originates from Chinese).

When you want to talk about an amount or number of years, you'll often see and hear 년 being used (with sino korean numbers of course)

Example:

일 년 = 1 year

삼 년 = 3 years

오 년 = 5 years

십 년 = 10 years

해 is PURE KOREAN

해 also means year, right? But its direct definition is the "time during which the earth rotates around the sun once". So technically a year.

Examples:

승규는 해가 바뀌면 스물이 된다. = Seung-gyu turns 20 when the year changes.

그들은 같은 해에 태어났어요. = They were born in the same year.

Most of the time you'll 년 and 해 in other expressions, so you should take your time to learn these:

새해 - new year

그해 - that year

올해 - this year

작년 - last year

금년 - this year

내년 - next year

매년 - every year.

THESE WORDS HAVE OTHER MEANINGS!

Besides year, 해 can mean SUN. It has another meaning of "day(time" as well.

년 can actually be a curse word meaning "b*tch".

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That's all for this lesson. We have plenty more where that came from at koreanstudyjunkie.com/blog