ANSWER: 과일, 과실 (果實), and 열매 all refer to the fruits of plants, but 과일 refers only to edible "juicy or succulent fruits" (apples, pears, grapes, etc.), 과실 to both edible "succulent" and "dry fruits" (nuts), and 열매 to all fruits, both edible and inedible.
My Korean-English dictionary shows that 과일 is a pure-Korean word, but it actually evolved from 과실 (果實), which is a Sino-Korean word, so at one time 과일 and 과실 meant the same thing, but over time, as mentioned above, 과일 has come to refer to only edible "juicy or succulent fruits," which the Chinese refer to as 水果 (수과 - water fruits). Both the Chinese and Koreans refer to "nuts" as 乾果 (건과), which literally means "dry (乾) fruits (果)."
The woman in the video below is showing how to write Chinese characters, and the example sentence she uses is the Chinese for "We eat fruit." I'm using the Korean pronunciations for the Chinese characters, not the Chinese. Also, I'm using the traditional characters, not the abbreviated forms.
We (我們 아문) eat (吃 흘) fruit (水果 수과).
The character 我 (아) means "I," but if it is followed by the plural marker 們 (문), it becomes "We." Since 水果 (수과) literally means "water (水) fruit (果)," the kind of fruit she is referring to is "juicy or succulent fruit," like apples and pears, not "dry (乾 건) fruit (果 과)," like nuts.
By the way, the Chinese word for "candy" is 糖果 (당과), which literally means "sugar (糖) fruits (果)."
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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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| From Dong-A's Prime Korean-English Dictionary |
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