I Very Like It: The Adverb Mistake Korean English Speakers Make
Korean speakers often say "I very like it" because Korean intensifiers like 너무 (neomu) or 정말 (jeongmal) attach directly to verbs, something English never allows. English needs "really," "very much," or a different adjective-based structure instead.
Park English2026-09-113 min read
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You'll hear it in week one, and you'll keep hearing it until someone corrects it directly: "I very like pizza." "She very want to go." It's one of the most consistent errors we see across every level, from middle schoolers writing diary entries to adults prepping for a business trip.
Why this happens
In Korean, the intensifier 너무 (neomu) or 정말 (jeongmal) sits right in front of the verb it's boosting. 너무 좋아해요 (neomu joahaeyo) breaks down almost word-for-word as "very + like-do." There's no grammatical rule in Korean stopping an intensifier from touching a verb directly. It just sits there and does its job.
English doesn't work that way. "Very" can modify adjectives ("very tall") and adverbs ("very quickly"), but it cannot modify a verb on its own. To intensify a verb, English routes around the problem — you either swap in a different word ("really like," "love") or you push "very" to the end and add "much" ("like it very much"). Students translate the Korean word order directly and the sentence comes out broken, even though every individual word is correct.
Here's the pattern laid out:
| Korean structure | Direct translation (wrong) | Correct English |
|---|---|---|
| 너무 좋아해요 (neomu joahaeyo) | I very like it | I really like it / I like it very much |
| 너무 배고파요 (neomu baegopayo) | I very hungry | I'm very hungry (this one's actually fine — "hungry" is an adjective) |
| 정말 원해요 (jeongmal wonhaeyo) | I very want it | I really want it |
| 너무 놀랐어요 (neomu nollasseoyo) | I very surprised | I was very surprised (also fine — "surprised" is functioning as an adjective here) |
That's the part that trips students up worse once they half-learn the rule. Adjectives take "very" directly. Verbs don't. And a fair number of Korean students' English mistakes come from adjective-like words in Korean (놀랐어요, 배고파요 — nollasseoyo, baegopayo) mapping onto true verbs in English, so the "safe" pattern they've memorized fails on some sentences and works on others. We won't pretend there's a clean shortcut here — the honest answer is that students need to sort their vocabulary into "this takes very" and "this needs really" as two separate lists, and it takes repetition.
Drills that actually fix it
- Sentence sort. Give students 12 sentences, half using adjectives ("tired," "happy," "hungry") and half using verbs ("like," "want," "miss"). Have them mark each "VERY OK" or "VERY NOT OK" before writing the corrected version.
- Fill the gap. "I ___ love this song" with a bank of words: really, very much, so, very. Only one or two fit each blank grammatically — force students to justify their choice out loud.
- Translate and catch. Give them five Korean sentences with 너무 (neomu) in front of a verb. Have them translate first, then swap papers and hunt for the "very + verb" error in a partner's work.
- Timed correction. Put ten broken sentences on the board — "I very like coffee," "He very wants to leave" — and give the class 90 seconds to fix as many as they can. Whoever gets the most explains the rule to the class.
This isn't a one-lesson fix. Expect to correct it again in three weeks, and again after summer camp, because the underlying transfer habit is strong and Korean grammar reinforces it every time a student speaks their first language between classes.