Learn Korean: 맨날 + Noun + 만

Let’s take a look at the Korean sentence pattern 맨날 + Verb + 만. 맨날 is one the few ways to say always in Korean, but it is often used in a negative sense like when someone does something all the time to the extent that it becomes so annoying. If a friend keeps saying he can’t hang out because he has to study, I would say You are always studying or All you is study. I am not impressed with his being studious at all. The main verb is 공부하다 (to study). 맨날 comes before it. The actual sentence is 맨날 공부해. To make it more blunt and stronger, we can add 만 to the noun. It add a nuance this is all you do, nothing else. In the above sentence, 만 is attached to 공부 (noun) so it splits it from 하다. It becomes 맨날 공부만 해. If the verb is not a 하다 verb like to eat, we make some changes. To eat in Korean is 먹다. We take the verb stem (먹) and attach 기. It becomes a noun (먹기). Now, we can attach 만 하다. The actual sentence is 맨날 먹기만 해 (You are always eating! Could you stop it because we’ll run out of food soon).

맨날 장난만 해!

You are always joking! (I’m annoyed of it already)

맨날 담배만 펴!

You are always smoking! (You are doing it too much)

맨날 자기만 해!

All you do is sleep!