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년 vs 해 | How to say "year" in Korean

Writer's picture: KSJ 쌤KSJ 쌤

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".


 

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

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