말
mal
Why Koreans say words become seeds
The picture A lump that leaves your mouth and crosses over to someone else. Once it lands, you can't take it back — and it starts working. 말 is the lump that leaves your mouth, crosses over, and is gone; 글 is the lump that lands on paper and stays there.
Where the picture shows up in 말
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how fast the lumps come out
말이 너무 빨라요.
ma-ri neo-mu ppal-la-yo
You're speaking too fast.
Lumps flying out of a mouth without a pause — the next one is airborne before the listener can catch the last
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the lumps one people trades in
한국말 조금 해요.
han-gung-mal jo-geum hae-yo
I speak a little Korean.
A circle of people passing lumps of the same shape back and forth, and you picking up a few to hand over too
Far more common in daily life than the formal word 한국어.
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one lump that crossed over
그 말은 못 들은 걸로 할게요.
geu ma-reun mot deu-reun geol-lo hal-kke-yo
I'll pretend I didn't hear that.
A lump that has already landed in front of you, left lying there and never picked up
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the lump I'm sending over
제 말 좀 들어 보세요.
je mal jom deu-reo bo-se-yo
Please hear me out.
Holding the lump in your hand out toward the other person and asking them to take it
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the landed lump grows
말이 씨가 된다고 하잖아요.
ma-ri ssi-ga doen-da-go ha-ja-na-yo
What you say tends to come true.
A lump you tossed down gets buried in the soil, sprouts, and grows up out of the ground
The picture: a word planted in the ground and sprouting.
All of it in one picture
말 is a lump that has left your mouth and already crossed over to someone else. Lumps flying out without a pause is speaking fast; a whole people passing lumps of the same shape back and forth is that people's language. Leaving a landed lump unpicked is pretending you didn't hear it; holding your lump out and asking them to take it is "hear me out." A lump you tossed sprouts in the ground, and that is a word coming true. So expressions with 말 aren't about sound; they track where the lump that crossed over has ended up.