Thursday, October 30, 2025

Can the Korean verb 빌다 be used to mean "to borrow"?

ANSWER: No, at least not anymore.

I started learning Korean in 1976 and remember learning sometime back then that 빌다 was used to mean "to borrow," and 빌리다 was used to mean "to lend," but apparently that is no longer the case. Today, 빌리다 is used to mean both "to borrow" and "to lean," so now 돈을 빌리다 can mean either "to lean money" or "to borrow money." Therefore, to avoid confusion, it would probably be better to use 돈을 빌리다 to mean "to borrow money" and 돈을 빌려주다 to mean "to lend money." In fact, the tiny little Underwood/Tuttle English-Korean dictionary I bought back in 1976 says that "to borrow" is 빌리다 and "to lend" is 빌려주다.


1975 Underwood/Tuttle English-Korean Dictionary


1975 Underwood/Tuttle English-Korean Dictionary


But apparently, not everyone got the memo because my 1998 "Donga Prime Korean-English Dictionary lists 빌다 as meaning "to borrow" and 빌리다 as meaning "to lend," without mentioning anything about 빌리다 meaning "to borrow."

1998 Donga's Prime Korean-English Dictionary

1998 Donga's Prime Korean-English Dictionary

But in my 2014 "Minjung's Essence Korean-English Dictionary," they finally got it right by getting rid of the 빌다 that means "to borrow" and including the meaning "to borrow" under the word 빌리다. I hope they stop changing things on me.

2014 Minjung's Essence Korean-English Dictionary


2014 Minjung's Essence Korean-English Dictionary

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.