Discuss weather, Korea's four distinct seasons, and seasonal activities. Korea has dramatic seasonal changes โ from cherry blossoms in spring to heavy monsoons in summer to vibrant autumn foliage.
Estimated Time: 40โ50 minutes
| Korean | Meaning | Korean | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| ๋ ์จ | weather | ๊ธฐ์จ | temperature |
| ๋ง๋ค | clear/sunny | ํ๋ฆฌ๋ค | cloudy |
| ๋น | rain | ๋ | snow |
| ๋ฐ๋ | wind | ์๊ฐ | fog |
| ๋ฅ๋ค | hot | ์ถฅ๋ค | cold |
| ๋ฐ๋ปํ๋ค | warm | ์์ํ๋ค | cool/refreshing |
| ์ตํ๋ค | humid | ๊ฑด์กฐํ๋ค | dry |
| ํํ | typhoon | ๋ฏธ์ธ๋จผ์ง | fine dust (pollution) |
| ์ฐ์ฐ | umbrella | ์ฅ๋ง | monsoon season |
| Korean | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ์ค๋ ๋ ์จ๊ฐ ์ด๋์? | How's the weather today? |
| ์ค๋ ๋ ์จ๊ฐ ์ข์์. | The weather is nice today. |
| ๋น๊ฐ ์์. | It's raining. |
| ๋์ด ์์. | It's snowing. |
| ๋ฐ๋์ด ๋ง์ด ๋ถ์ด์. | It's very windy. |
| ์ค๋ ๋๋ฌด ๋์์. | It's so hot today. |
| ์ค๋ ๋๋ฌด ์ถ์์. | It's so cold today. |
| ๋ฏธ์ธ๋จผ์ง๊ฐ ์ฌํด์. | The fine dust is bad. |
| ์ฐ์ฐ ๊ฐ์ ธ์์ด์? | Did you bring an umbrella? |
| Season | Korean | Months | Highlights |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spring | ๋ด (bom) | MarchโMay | Cherry blossoms (๋ฒ๊ฝ), mild weather, festivals |
| Summer | ์ฌ๋ฆ (yeoreum) | JuneโAugust | Hot & humid, ์ฅ๋ง monsoon (June-July), beaches, ์ผ๊ณํ |
| Autumn | ๊ฐ์ (gaeul) | SeptโNov | Beautiful foliage (๋จํ), clear skies, harvest festivals |
| Winter | ๊ฒจ์ธ (gyeoul) | DecโFeb | Cold & dry, skiing, hot foods (์ฐ๊ฐ), ๋ก๊ตญ on New Year |
Korea's monsoon season (์ฅ๋ง) usually runs from late June to mid-July. Expect heavy rain, humidity, and occasional flooding. Koreans stock up on rain gear and enjoy indoor activities. Summer also brings ์ผ๋ณต (the three hottest days), when people eat ์ผ๊ณํ (ginseng chicken soup) to fight heat with heat โ a traditional Korean approach!
Fine dust pollution (๋ฏธ์ธ๋จผ์ง) is a major concern in Korea, especially in spring. Koreans check air quality apps daily and wear masks (๋ง์คํฌ) on bad days. Check the ๋ฏธ์ธ๋จผ์ง forecast before planning outdoor activities! The phrase ๋ฏธ์ธ๋จผ์ง๊ฐ ์ฌํด์ (the fine dust is bad) is very commonly used.
| Season | Korean | Activity |
|---|---|---|
| ๋ด | ๊ฝ๊ตฌ๊ฒฝ ๊ฐ๋ค | Go see flowers (cherry blossoms) |
| ๋ด | ์ํ ๊ฐ๋ค | Go on a picnic |
| ์ฌ๋ฆ | ๋ฐ๋ค์ ๊ฐ๋ค | Go to the beach |
| ์ฌ๋ฆ | ๋น์ ๋จน๋ค | Eat shaved ice (๋น์) |
| ๊ฐ์ | ๋จํ ๊ตฌ๊ฒฝ ๊ฐ๋ค | Go see autumn foliage |
| ๊ฐ์ | ๋ฑ์ฐ ๊ฐ๋ค | Go hiking |
| ๊ฒจ์ธ | ์คํค ํ๋ค | Go skiing |
| ๊ฒจ์ธ | ๋ถ์ด๋นต ๋จน๋ค | Eat fish-shaped pastry (street food) |