ANSWER: small (小) town (邑)
Today I came across the following Korean sentence:
저희 아버지는 작은 소읍에서 교편을 잡고 계십니다.
My father teaches (교편을 잡다) in a small town.
Note: The phrase 교편을 잡다 translates as "to teach," but it literally means "to hold (잡다) a teacher's pointer or ruler (교편)."
The Sino-Korean word 읍 (邑) translates as "town," so since 소 (小) means "small," 소읍 (小邑) literally means "small (小) town (邑)," which could be written in pure Korean as 작은 고을 or 작은 마을 since 작은 means "small" and since 고을 can translate as "town." That means the phrase 작은 소읍 in the above Korean sentence literally means "small (작은) small town (소읍)," which is redundant. This kind of redundancy seems to happen a lot in Korean, usually when Koreans are mixing pure Korean words with Sino-Korean words.
Therefore, instead of 작은 소읍, it would be better to write either just 소읍, 작은 읍, or 작은 고을.
By the way, the Sino-Korean word for "big town" is 대읍 (大邑), which literally means "big (大) town (邑)." It could also be written as 큰 읍 or 큰 고을.
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| From Dong-A's Prime Korean-English Dictionary |
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| From Dong-A's Prime Korean-English Dictionary |
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| From Dong-A's Prime Korean-English Dictionary |
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