Collective Adjectives  (집합형용사)

What is a collective adjective?

Collective adjectives are a subgroup of nominal adjectives, or adjectives that act as nouns. They are used to refer to a group of people based on a characteristic that they share.
(집합형용사는 명사의 역할을 하는 명사형용사의 하위집단이다. 집합형용사는 자체가 공유하는 특성에 기초한 사람들의 그룹을 지칭하는 데 사용된다.)

For example:

• “The rich should help the poor.”
  This sentence is another way of saying, “Rich people should help poor people.”

Some common collective adjectives are:

• the blind
• the elderly
• the hardworking
• the homeless
• the innocent
• the intelligent
• the poor
• the rich
• the sick
• the strong
• the weak
• the young

In addition, a large amount of collective adjectives refer to the nationality of a group of people. For example, instead of saying “French people cook well,” we can say, “The French cook well.” Other nationalities for which we have collective adjectives are:

• the Korean
• the English
• the Irish
• the Japanese
• the Scottish
• the Spanish
• the Vietnamese
• the Chinese

Notice that when we use a collective adjective for nationality, it’s capitalized.

Collective adjectives for nationality need to be memorized, as not all nationalities have the collective adjective form. (모든 국적이 집합형용사 형태를 갖는 것은 아니기 때문에 국적별 집합형용사는 외워두는것이 좋다)
For example, to refer to a group of German people, we say “(the) Germans” which is a plural proper noun, there is no corresponding collective adjective for German people. Other examples include (the) Canadians, (the) Russians, (the) Americans, and (the) Slovaks.

How to use collective adjectives

Using collective adjectives is simple. There are only a couple of things that we need to remember:

• 1. We always add the article the before the adjective (except for nationalities that use plural proper nouns).  (우리는 항상 형용사 앞에 관사 the 를 앞에 추가한다(복수의 고유명사를 사용하는 국적은 제외한다)
• 2. We always treat collective adjectives as plural nouns. This means that they have to take plural forms of verbs.
• 3. We do not pluralize collective adjectives by adding the suffixes -s or -es. They are already considered plural (except for nationalities that use plural proper nouns).

Let’s look at some examples:

• “The rich are usually powerful.”
• “The French are the best chefs.”
• “The elderly need proper care.”

In these examples, the rich, the French, and the elderly function as the subjects of the sentences. They are treated as plurals, which is why the sentences use the plural forms of the verbs be and need.

Collective adjectives can also function as the object of a sentence, as in:

• “We are working hard to help the homeless.”

In this example, the subject of the sentence is we, while the object is the collective adjective the homeless.

Common Errors

Collective adjectives and collective nouns are often mistaken for one another, but there are notable distinctions. Collective nouns (such as team, staff, or class) are structurally and functionally nouns, whereas collective adjectives are adjectives that act as nouns. Additionally, collective nouns are usually considered singular (e.g. “The best team is going to win”), whereas collective adjectives are always considered plural, as previously mentioned.

(집합 형용사와 집합 명사는 종종 서로 오인되지만, 주목할 만한 차이점이 있다. 집합명사(예: 팀, 직원, 계급)는 구조적으로나 기능적으로 명사인 반면, 집합형용사는 명사의 역할을 하는 형용사이다. 또한 집합명사는 일반적으로 단수형(예: “The best team is going to win” – “최고의 팀이 이길 것이다”)으로 간주되는 반면, 집합형 형용사는 앞에서 언급한 바와 같이 항상 복수형으로 간주된다.)