Lesson #3. When you are sick, '아파요'

Usually, when you learn the language, most of time you would start learning how to introduce yourself. That is what I've done whenever I taught Korean to people. But, here, I've decided to little bit personalize the theme.

Today, early in the morning, I went to see a Dr. and had a small surgery. It was not a big surgery, but the local anesthesia is wearing off and now the pain is killing me. When you are sick or you are hurt, you can simply say 아파요 /APaYo/.

The pronunciation is very easy if you have read the previous lesson about consonants and vowels.
So, let's say, you have a headache. In that case, we don't want to translate directly. You could. It is nothing wrong. But there is a more simple way to say. If you have a headache, that means your head feels sick. So...guess what...

머리 /MuRi/ (a head) + 아파요 /APaYo/ (feels sick, be-verb sick or hurt).
So, eventually, 머리 아파요 is a same meaning of 'I have a headache.' Hmmm....Let's use some other parts of body. What about a nose??
코 /Ko/ (nose) + 아파요 /APaYo/ (hurt) = 코 아파요 (A nose is hurt.)

눈/Nu:n/ (an eay) + 아파요 /APaYo/ (hurt) = 눈 아파요  
배/Bae/ (a stomach) + 아파요/APaYo/ (hurt) = 배 아파요
허리/HuRi/ (a waist) + 아파요/APaYo/ (hurt) = 허리 아파요
목/Mog/ (a neck, or throat) + 아파요 /APaYo/ (hurt) = 목 아파요
팔/Pal/ (an arm) + 아파요 = 팔 아파요
다리/DaRi/ (a leg) + 아파요 = 다리 아파요

Tip #1.
If you want to say more kind of fancy, you can put a special letter to make the sentence smooth. This letter indicates the subject. So, for example, when you say '눈 아파요', '눈' is a subject and '아파요' is kind of verb part. After '눈', if you add '이 /i/', the '이' indicates that '눈' is a subject. Therefore, you can say '눈이 아파요' /Nu:nI APaYo/. Although you write '눈이', the pronunciation of '눈이 /Nu:nI/' and '누니'/Nu:Ni/.

눈이 /Nu:nI/ 아파요.
목이 /MogI/ 아파요.
팔이/PalI/ 아파요.

The one of character of this '이/i/' is that it comes when the previous letter consists of a consonant +vowel+ consonant (finished with a consonant: e.g. 눈/Nu:n/, 목/Mog/) .

Tip #2.  Then, the question is raised, what if the previous letter consists of a consonant and vowel like 코 /Ko/, 머리/MuRi/ or 다리/DaRi/? In these cases, you use '가'/Ga/.

머리가 /MuRiGa/ 아파요.
코가/KoGa/ 아파요.
다리가/DaRiGa/ 아파요.
허리가/HuRiGa/ 아파요.

How about that?? You can easily speak in Korean when some of your body part is hurt or feels sick.

Oh!!! When you want to ask someone what part she/he feels sick, you say,
어디/UDi/ (where) 아파요? (the intonation is going up in the end.)
Or, You could also say, "어디가/UDiGa/ 아파요? here, the '가/Ga/' is the same function of Tip #2.

So, what happened to me?? I got the surgery in my inner mouth. So if you ask me,
'어디가 아파요?'
I would say,
'입 안이 아파요' /Yip AnI APaYo/ --> 입 /Yip/ (a mouth) 안 /An/ (inner, inside) 이/i/ (Tip #1.) , 아파요. =)

Hope you have a healthy life. Having a surgery is quite horrible. ;P