The Overheard Number in a Market Scene

The note "3 for 1,000 won discount" mis-parses the phrase 천 원 깎아 드려요. The student has attached the discount to the wrong base price and possibly misheard 천 as the total. The correct reading is: the unit price is 5,000 won each (두 개에 만 원), and buying three earns a 1,000 won reduction, so three cost 14,000 won. The error is not vocabulary but number-chunking under time pressure. A stronger strategy: during the first play, record only raw numbers and their attached nouns (두 개–만 원, 세 개–천 원 깎아), not computed totals. Compute during the 40-second gap. This separates transcription from arithmetic, so a single misheard syllable does not corrupt the whole answer. Students should also note the counter 개 separately from currency 원, since Korean number phrases stack counter, quantity, and price in a fixed order.

The buyer pays 17,000 won. The vendor's second utterance sets a fresh price for a different quantity: 네 개는 만 팔천 원인데, 오늘은 만 칠천 원에 드릴게요 - "four would be 18,000, but today I'll give them to you for 17,000." The three-item discount (천 원 깎아 드려요) applies only to a purchase of three; it is a quantity-specific offer, not a standing rate. A common trap is to add the 1,000 won discount to the four-item base of 18,000, which coincidentally also yields 17,000 - so the number is right but the reasoning is wrong. In a written justification, the student should cite the vendor's explicit 네 개는 as the marker that a new price band has opened. The phrase 오늘은 also signals a temporary condition, which matters for the follow-up question on attitude: the vendor is being generous but framing it as a one-day favour, not a permanent price cut.

Three features support the judgement. First, the vendor volunteers a discount without being asked (세 개 사시면 천 원 깎아 드려요), which signals warmth and sales initiative. Second, the discount is bounded and conditional - it applies to a stated quantity, and the four-item price is still quoted as a real figure (만 팔천 원) before being reduced. A vendor desperate to please would not name the full price first. Third, the framing 오늘은 드릴게요 marks the concession as limited in time, protecting the vendor's margin. Together these show a seller who is personable and proactive but keeps control of the transaction. Students should avoid reading 깎아 드려요 as servility: the honorific 드리다 here is routine service politeness, not deference. The strongest answers quote the co-occurrence of a firm base price with a voluntary, time-limited reduction.