I’m also a fan of Tim Ferriss, but I was rather disappointed with his section on language learning in The 4 Hour Chef. He claims to have attained “fluency” in several languages in a short amount of time, but his advice in the book is really only applicable to absolute beginners to the language. It seems to me like his idea of fluency is being able to carry out a clumsy 5 minute conversation with someone on a limited range of topics (I could do that after six months of living in Korea as well). Now I’ve been studying for 4 years, and I still consider myself far from fluent. Really the only road to fluency is memorizing 10,000+ vocab words, and clocking in a few thousand hours of listening and reading. There are no shortcuts (although LingQ does make it a lot easier!).
As for your translations, the problem with Korean is that there are seemingly a hundred ways to say the same thing. The translations you have above are super-formal, and I’ve never actually heard anyone speak that way (outside of TV dramas). I’ll provide some translations below that are closer to the real spoken Korean you’ll hear if you visit the country. If you speak like your examples, people will understand you, but you’ll sound like you’re in the army
Note that I’m not a native speaker, so hopefully Alex or Monyou stumble upon this thread and correct me if anything below sounds awkward:
The apple is red.
사과는 빨간색이에요.
(사과 = the apple, 는 = topic marker, 빨간색 = red, 이에요 = is)
It is John’s apple.
존의 사과이에요.
(의 = possession marker (John’s). The word “it” is usually omitted if it’s implied)
I give John the apple.
저는 존에게 사과를 줘요.
(에게 = to, 를 = object marker – the thing that is being acted upon)
We give him the apple.
우리는 그에게 사과를 줘요.
He gives it to John.
그는 존에게 줘요.
She gives it to him.
그녀는 그에게 줘요.
Is the apple red?
사과는 빨간색이에요?
or
사과는 빨간색인가요?
The apples are red.
사과들은 빨간색이에요.
or just
사과는 빨간색이에요.
(Koreans don’t always use the plural marker “들”; it’s often omitted. 사과 could mean apple or apples depending on the context)
I must give it to him.
저는 그에게 줘야돼요.
I want to give it to her.
그녀에게 주고 싶어요.
(“I” and “you” are often omitted when they’re implied)
I’m going to know tomorrow.
제가 내일 알게 될거에요.
I’m going to give it to him tomorrow (better example of future tense, since “to know” isn’t really an action)
제가 내일 그에게 줄거에요
I have eaten the apple.
Doesn’t have a proper translation in Korean. Just use simple past tense:
제가 사과를 먹었어요. - I ate the apple
I can’t eat the apple.
Ambiguous statement.
저는 사과를 못 먹어요.
or
제가 사과를 먹을 수 없어요.
(I am physically incapable of eating the apple)
제가 사과를 먹으면 안 돼요.
(I’m not allowed to / not supposed to eat the apple)