my-korean1-2nd-ed

160
UNIT 6 몇 시에 만날까요?
무슨 ‘Which...?’; ‘What kind of ...?’; ‘What...?’
When you want to ask a question that corresponds to the English ‘which ...?’
or ‘what kind of ...?’, you can use the question word 무슨 in front of the noun
that you are asking about. Strictly speaking, 무슨 is equivalent to ‘what kind
of…?’ and should be answered by stating a type. (E.g. ‘What kind of food did
you eat?’ ‘I had Italian food.’) However, in common usage, 무슨 is also used
to correspond to questions like ‘What food did you eat?’ and can be answered
with ‘I ate pasta’.
Examples:
(1) A: 무슨 영화 좋아해? What type of movie do you like?
B: 액션 영화. Action movies.
(2) A: 무슨 책 읽어요? What kind of book are you reading?
B: 소설책이요. A novel.
(3) A: 둘이 무슨 이야기 해? What are you two talking about?
B: 어, 아무 것도 아니야. Uh, it’s nothing.
(4) A: 무슨 일이에요? What’s the matter with you?
B: 아무 것도 아니에요. It’s nothing.
Note that 무슨 can also mean ‘any’ depending on its context as in (5).
(5) A: 내일 무슨 계획 있어? Do you have any plan for tomorrow?
B: 아니, 왜? No, why?