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Many Ways to Say ONLY in Korean

One of the earliest
particles beginners encounter in learning Korean is 만.
It is attached to nouns to express “only” as in 나만겨울이좋아 (Only
I like winter), 오빠는나만보여 (My brother only sees me), and 너한테만보여줄게 (I
will show it only to you). It is this easy to say “only” that I wouldn’t need
to write one whole note for this. I could just share it on Facebook, right.

But I know you know
that you are not leaving this note without learning something new and I do hope
you will. Aside from 만, I will show you a few more ways to say
“only” and after that your Korean will never be the same again.

The second way
is –밖에안. 밖에 is
attached to a noun and 안 is succeeded by any verb. To better
understand this, let’s take a look at one example.

동찬이가트와이스노래밖에안들어.

If we remove the
part 트와이스노래밖에,
what is left is “Dongchan does not listen to (anything). The purpose of 밖에 is
to say that something is an exception. Hence, it literally means “Dongchan does
not listen to anything apart from Twice’s songs” which basically means
“Dongchan only listens to Twice’s songs”. Here are some more examples.

난너밖에없어.

You are the only one I have. (없다 is
a negative verb so there is no need to add 안.)

나진짜이것밖에몰라.

I only know this. This is all I know. (모르다 is
also a negative verb).

다이어트때문에우리누나가아침식사밖에안먹어.

My sister only eats breakfast because she
is on a diet.

Another way of
saying “only” is -ㄹ뿐이다. It can be attached to the ‘be’ verb,
active and state verbs. Here are some examples.