Heungbu and Nolbu Story: an Easy Story with Audio

What you'll learn

• Read a 16-sentence folk-tale retelling aloud.
• Describe each brother with a modifier phrase: 마음이 착한 동생, 욕심 많은 형.
• Tell the present modifiers 착한 and 많은 from the past modifier 다친.
• State the moral of the tale in one sentence.

Before you start: You should be comfortable with the past polite style and simple connectors such as 그래서 and 하지만. Modifiers are explained on the Korean noun modifier page, but you can read the tale first. The story takes about 25 minutes. The sound changes are covered in Korean tensification.

What Happens in This Heungbu and Nolbu Story?

In this Heungbu and Nolbu story, two brothers live in a village. The older brother, Nolbu, is greedy and keeps their parents' money. The younger brother, Heungbu, is kind and poor. Heungbu cares for an injured swallow, and the next spring it brings him a gourd seed. The gourd is full of gold and silver. Nolbu copies him, breaks a swallow's leg on purpose, and gets only bad things from his gourd. Play the narration once, then read along with the table.

The tale is known as 흥부전 (Heungbu-jeon) in Korean tradition, and versions differ in details, such as what comes out of Nolbu's gourds. This retelling keeps only the parts every version shares: a kind brother, a greedy brother, an injured swallow, gourds and a moral. The next section shows what is easy and hard.

What Makes This Story Easy or Hard to Read?

The text is easy because the plot is simple and the verbs are mostly the past polite forms you know. It is harder in four places: modifiers placed before nouns, the two-brother vocabulary, several sound changes and the shift to the present in the last line.

The modifier is the main skill. In English the description follows the noun ("a brother who is kind"). In Korean it comes before the noun and ends in a form like -ㄴ or -은: 착한 동생. Once you can find the modifier, the rest of the sentence is a plain past sentence.

Which New Words Should You Preview?

Preview these words before you read. The first six are the words you need most to follow the plot.

Romanization is only a reading aid here. The words 제비 (swallow) and 박 (gourd) are the two key objects of the tale, so learn them first. Hear two of the harder words before you start.

Read the Story in Three Passes

Read the story three times, each pass with one job.

1. Pass 1: read silently for the plot. Find the two brothers, the swallow and the gourd. Do not look anything up.
2. Pass 2: find the modifiers. Underline the words that describe a noun before it: 욕심 많은, 마음이 착한, 다친, 나쁜. Check the table for each.
3. Pass 3: read aloud. Read the tale as if you were telling it to a child, with a flat voice for the narration and a firm voice for the moral.

Try the two brother lines with the audio and then without it.

Use them as a model, then read along. The extensive reading page explains why finishing easy texts and re-reading them works.

Comprehension Questions

Answer from the text. Question 5 asks for the moral.

1. Who is the older brother? (a) Heungbu (b) Nolbu (c) the swallow
2. How is Heungbu described? (a) greedy (b) kind-hearted (c) lazy
3. What did Heungbu do for the swallow? (a) treated it (b) sold it (c) ignored it
4. What was inside Heungbu's gourd? (a) gold and silver (b) goblins (c) nothing
5. What is the moral? (a) kindness is rewarded and greed is punished (b) birds are lucky (c) older brothers are always right

If you missed question 2, look at the phrase before 동생 in sentence 4. The modifier comes first, and it tells you what kind of brother it is.

What Grammar Appears in the Story?

Seven patterns carry the story.

The modifier rule has two parts. After a consonant, the present modifier ending is -은 (많은). After a vowel, it is -ㄴ (착한 from 착하다). A past modifier uses -ㄴ after a vowel (다친 from 다치다) and -은 after a consonant. The Korean noun modifier lesson gives the full pattern with a table.

Worked Example: the Two Brothers' Modifiers

Read sentences 3 and 4 as a pair, because they show the two main modifiers side by side.

1. 욕심 많은 형: 많다 (to be a lot) + 은 (after a consonant) = 많은. So 욕심 많은 형 means "an older brother with a lot of greed".
2. 마음이 착한 동생: 착하다 (to be kind) + ㄴ (after a vowel) = 착한. The phrase 마음이 착한 means "whose heart is kind".
3. 다친 제비: 다치다 (to be hurt) + ㄴ = 다친. A past modifier: "the swallow that was hurt".
4. 나쁜 것: 나쁘다 (to be bad) + ㄴ = 나쁜. 것 means "thing", so 나쁜 것 is "a bad thing".
5. In each case the modifier sits directly before the noun, and the noun carries the particle: 착한 동생은, 다친 제비를.

You can make your own modifier phrase by choosing an adjective and a noun: 마음이 따뜻한 친구 (a warm-hearted friend) or 키가 큰 동생 (a tall younger brother). The structure noun + 이/가 + adjective-modifier + noun is the same.

What Mistakes Do Learners Make Here?

Learners often make four mistakes with this text.

The second error comes from reading letter by letter. The same aspiration happens in the other order, ㅎ before ㄷ, in 좋다 [조타]. For sounds like 욕심 [욕씸], where a tense sound appears without a tense letter, see Korean tensification.

Practice and Answer Key

Part A: make the modifier. Write the modifier form for each adjective.

1. 착하다 → ___ 사람
2. 많다 → ___ 사람
3. 나쁘다 → ___ 사람

Part B: speak. Describe both brothers in Korean in one sentence each, using 착한 and 욕심 많은.

Part C: moral. Say the moral of the tale in your own words, in English or in Korean.

Where to Go Next

Continue with the other tales in Graded Korean Stories, or return to the Korean short stories for beginners overview. For the grammar behind this tale, read Korean noun modifier. The Korean culture section has more on stories and traditions.

This Heungbu and Nolbu story is a short retelling for reading practice, not a full translation of the classic text, and it leaves out many incidents. It covers present and past modifiers and a few connectors, but not every modifier form. A reread a week later should be easier.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who Are Heungbu and Nolbu?

They are two brothers in a classic Korean folk tale. Heungbu is the kind younger brother, and Nolbu is the greedy older brother. Heungbu cares for an injured swallow and is rewarded with a gourd full of treasure. Nolbu tries to copy him, but his greed brings him bad luck. The tale is known as 흥부전.

What Is a Noun Modifier?

A noun modifier is a word or phrase that describes a noun and comes before it. In 착한 동생, the word 착한 describes 동생. It is formed from the adjective stem plus -ㄴ or -은. Korean has no word for "who is", so the description simply sits before the noun.

Why Is 착한 Said [차칸]?

The ㄱ at the end of 착 meets the ㅎ of 한. Together they sound like one aspirated ㅋ, so 착한 sounds like 차칸. Romanization shows this as chakan. The same aspiration happens in 좋다 [조타], where ㅎ and ㄷ join into ㅌ. Reading aloud and checking the brackets is the quickest way to learn it.

What Is the Difference between 형 and 오빠?

Both mean older brother. A male speaker says 형, and a female speaker says 오빠. For an older sister, a female speaker says 언니, and a male speaker says 누나. The tale uses 형 as the plain word for an older brother. 동생 means a younger sibling of either sex.

Why Is the Last Sentence in the Present Tense?

The moral is a general truth, not an event in the story, so Korean puts it in the present: 받아요. The earlier sentences tell what happened, so they are in the past. The ending -고 in 받고 joins two ideas, and the tense of the whole sentence is shown on the last verb.

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