Korean Writing Correction: Writing About Travel and Flying

Travel entries are some of the easiest to start and some of the hardest to finish well. Getting to the airport is simple vocabulary, but the moment you want to say "back then you could do X, and now you can't," you need to handle time, contrast, and cause all in one paragraph. Today's entry does exactly that — it's about how ordinary passengers used to be allowed into an airplane cockpit — and it lands on three errors that show up in almost every entry that compares past and present.

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The Original Entry

비행기 조종실 이야기

지금 상식에 비추어 보면 믿기 어렵지만, 예날에는 일반인도 비교적으로 쉽게 비행기 조종실에 들어갈 수 있었다고 한다. 조종사가 허락만 하면 아이들이 초대를 받고 조종실에 들어가 기념사진을 찍기도 했다.

그런데 2019년에는 여성 승객을 조종실에 초대한 사진이 SNS에 유출돼서 해고당한 조종사 아야기도 있다. 안전에 대한 상식이 그만큼 달라진 것이다.

나는 비행기를 탈 때마다 창가 자리에 앉는다. 조종실에는 못 들어가지만, 이륙할 때 도시가 작아지는 모습만으로도 충분하다.

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Corrections

Correction 1: 비교적으로 → 비교적

Written: 일반인도 비교적으로 쉽게 들어갈 수 있었다 Correct: 일반인도 비교적 쉽게 들어갈 수 있었다

This error is the product of learning a rule correctly and then applying it one word too far.

The rule you learned is real: Sino-Korean words ending in -적 become adverbs by adding -으로.

• 효과적 → 효과적으로 공부한다 (study effectively)
• 적극적 → 적극적으로 참여한다 (participate actively)
• 개인적 → 개인적으로 생각한다 (think personally)

So 비교적 → 비교적으로 looks like the obvious next step. It isn't, because 비교적 is already an adverb on its own. It's one of a small set of -적 words that got lexicalized as standalone adverbs, and adding -으로 makes it redundant — roughly like writing "comparatively-ly."

The other one worth memorizing right now is 가급적 ("as much as possible"): 가급적 빨리 오세요, never 가급적으로.

There's a useful test. If the -적 word is describing how much / to what degree, it usually stands alone. If it's describing in what manner, it takes -으로. 비교적 쉽다 is a degree ("relatively easy"), so bare 비교적. 효과적으로 공부하다 is a manner ("in an effective way"), so -으로.

Try it in your diary:

• 오늘은 비교적 한가했다. (Today was relatively quiet.)
• 가급적 일찍 자려고 한다. (I try to go to bed as early as possible.)
• 이번 여행은 계획적으로 준비했다. (I prepared for this trip in a planned way.) — manner, so -으로 is correct

Correction 2: 초대를 받고 → 초대를 받아

Written: 아이들이 초대를 받고 조종실에 들어가 Correct: 아이들이 초대를 받아 조종실에 들어가

Both endings connect two clauses, and English translates both as "and." Korean does not treat them as interchangeable, because they encode different relationships between the two events.

-고 is pure sequence, or simple listing. Two things happened; the sentence does not claim one caused the other.

밥을 먹고 나갔다. (I ate and went out.) — first this, then that

-아/어(서) links the two events: the first one enables, causes, or provides the means for the second.

표를 사서 들어갔다. (I bought a ticket and [so] went in.) — the ticket is why entry was possible

In this sentence, the invitation is precisely what made entering the cockpit possible. That's a causal link, not a coincidence of timing. 초대를 받고 들어갔다 reads as "they received an invitation, and separately, they went in" — which strips out the whole point of the sentence.

Here's a clean way to feel the difference. Compare these two:

• 친구를 만나고 영화를 봤다. → I met a friend, then watched a movie. Possibly alone. The two are just consecutive.
• 친구를 만나서 영화를 봤다. → I met a friend and watched a movie with them. The meeting is what led to the movie.

One caution: -아/어서 cannot carry its own past tense. You write 만나서 봤다, never 만났어서 봤다 — the tense lives on the final verb only. -고 does allow it (만났고 봤다), which is another reason learners default to -고. It feels safer. It's also usually less precise.

Try it in your diary:

• 창가 자리를 예약해서 야경을 볼 수 있었다. (I booked a window seat and so could see the night view.)
• 짐을 부치고 게이트로 갔다. (I checked my bags and went to the gate.) — mere sequence, -고 is right
• 비행기가 늦게 도착해서 환승을 놓쳤다. (The plane arrived late, so I missed my connection.)

Correction 3: 지금 상식에 → 지금의 상식에

Written: 지금 상식에 비추어 보면 Correct: 지금의 상식에 비추어 보면

Korean lets nouns stack directly far more often than English does — 학교 친구 ("school friend"), 회사 일 ("work stuff"), 여행 계획 ("travel plans"). No 의 required. So learners reasonably conclude that 의 is optional decoration, and drop it everywhere.

Time words are where that breaks down, and the split is worth knowing.

When the second noun is an event that took place at that time, stacking is natural:

• 오늘 회의 (today's meeting)
• 어제 뉴스 (yesterday's news)
• 작년 여행 (last year's trip)

When the second noun is an abstract state or standard rather than an event, you need 의:

• 지금의 상식 (the common sense of today)
• 지금의 기술 (current technology)
• 그때의 분위기 (the atmosphere of that time)

The reason is that 지금 is strongly adverbial — its default job is modifying a verb, not a noun. Write 지금 상식에 비추어 보면 and a Korean reader parses 지금 as attaching to 비추어 보면: "right now, if we hold it up against common sense." The sentence still makes sense, just not the sense you wanted. Adding 의 forces 지금 to attach leftward to 상식 instead, which is what the entry means: standards have changed, and by today's standards this is unthinkable.

If you're unsure, the safe move for abstract nouns is to include 의. Over-including it sounds slightly stiff; omitting it can change what modifies what.

Try it in your diary:

• 지금의 나는 그때와 다르다. (The me of today is different from back then.)
• 어제 회의는 길었다. (Yesterday's meeting was long.) — event noun, no 의 needed
• 그때의 기분을 아직 기억한다. (I still remember how I felt at that time.)

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Quick fixes

• 예날에는 → 옛날에는: The word is 옛날 ("the old days"), from 옛 ("old, former"). 예날 doesn't exist. This slips through constantly because ㅖ and ㅔ are pronounced identically in modern Korean, so your ear can't catch it — only your eye can. The same 옛 shows up in 옛 친구 ("an old friend") and 옛 기억 ("an old memory"), so locking in the spelling once pays off repeatedly.
• 아야기 → 이야기: A straight typo for 이야기 ("story, talk"). Worth flagging because 이야기 is one of the highest-frequency nouns in diary writing — 재미있는 이야기, 그런 이야기를 들었다 — and it also contracts to 얘기 in casual speech and writing. Both spellings are correct; 얘기 just sounds more conversational.

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The pattern to remember

Before you connect two clauses, ask one question: did the first thing make the second thing possible?

• Yes → -아/어(서): 초대를 받아 들어갔다, 표를 사서 탔다, 늦게 도착해서 놓쳤다
• No, they just happened in order → -고: 짐을 부치고 갔다, 밥을 먹고 나갔다

English hides this distinction behind a single "and," which is why the choice feels arbitrary until you start asking the question deliberately. Once you do, most sentences answer it immediately — and travel entries, which are full of one thing enabling the next, are the best place to practice.

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The Corrected Entry

비행기 조종실 이야기

지금의 상식에 비추어 보면 믿기 어렵지만, 옛날에는 일반인도 비교적 쉽게 비행기 조종실에 들어갈 수 있었다고 한다. 조종사가 허락만 하면 아이들이 초대를 받아 조종실에 들어가 기념사진을 찍기도 했다.

그런데 2019년에는 여성 승객을 조종실에 초대한 사진이 SNS에 유출돼서 해고당한 조종사 이야기도 있다. 안전에 대한 상식이 그만큼 달라진 것이다.

나는 비행기를 탈 때마다 창가 자리에 앉는다. 조종실에는 못 들어가지만, 이륙할 때 도시가 작아지는 모습만으로도 충분하다.

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✍️ Writing about a trip? Every time you write -고, stop and check whether the first clause actually caused the second. If it did, you want -아/어서.

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