Quantity Questions: 몇 and 얼마나 (and 얼마)

English pours "how many," "how much," "how long," and "how often" out of one little word — "how" — plus a quantity word. Korean sorts the same jobs into three different words, and the sorting is done by a clean question: are you counting discrete units, measuring a degree, or asking a price? Answer that first, and the right word — 몇, 얼마나, or 얼마 — picks itself.

몇 + counter: for things you can count

몇 ("how many") is a determiner, like the "what/which" words on 뭐 / 무슨 / 어느 / 어떤. It cannot stand alone — it must be followed by a counter, the little classifier word that goes with countable nouns. You are literally asking "how many [units]?"

The counter is not optional. 명 counts people, 개 counts things, 잔 counts cupfuls, 마리 counts animals, 시 counts o'clock hours. Whichever noun you are counting, 몇 needs the matching counter after it — the full inventory is on counters overview.

몇 inherits the counter's number system

Here is the wrinkle that surprises English speakers, who have only one set of numbers. Korean runs two counting systems — native Korean (하나, 둘, 셋…) and Sino-Korean (일, 이, 삼…) — and each counter demands one or the other. When you answer a 몇 question, you must use whichever system that counter takes. 몇 itself doesn't change; the answer does.

• 몇 시 (o'clock) is answered with native numbers: 한 시, 두 시, 세 시.
• 몇 분 (minutes) takes Sino numbers: 일 분, 이십 분. 몇 번 splits by meaning — a label or sequence number (which bus, which question) is Sino (일 번, 이 번), but "how many times" is native (한 번, 두 번, 세 번).
• 몇 살 (age) takes native; 몇 개 and 몇 명 take native.

So 몇 시 몇 분이에요? mixes both systems in one breath — the hour in native, the minutes in Sino. Which counter takes which system is mapped out on which number system per counter and, for the clock specifically, on telling the hour with native 시.

얼마나: for degree, duration, and frequency

얼마나 ("how much / to what extent") is an adverb, not a counter word. It modifies verbs and adjectives, asking to what degree something is the case — how long, how far, how big, how often. You reach for it whenever there are no discrete units to count.

Because 얼마나 measures a degree, it slots in right before the verb or adjective it is scaling — 얼마나 걸려요 (how long does it take), 얼마나 커요 (how big), 얼마나 자주 (how often). It never takes a counter, and it never asks about a count of separate things.

얼마: for price

얼마 looks like 얼마나 minus a syllable, and the two are cousins, but 얼마 is a noun that in everyday use means one specific thing: how much it costs. It is the word you say at every shop, market, and taxi.

Keep the pair straight by their part of speech and job: 얼마 = a noun asking a price ("what amount of money"); 얼마나 = an adverb asking a degree ("to what extent"). The distinction is drawn from the noun side on 몇 vs 얼마.

Asking "how long": 얼마나 오래 and 얼마 동안

Duration deserves its own note because English "how long" hides two different questions, and Korean splits them. 얼마나 오래 asks the degree of length — "how long a time?" — and behaves like any other 얼마나 phrase. 얼마 동안 asks about the span — "over what stretch of time?" — using 얼마 not as a price but as "what amount," followed by 동안 ("during/for a period").

Both are natural; 얼마나 오래 stresses the sheer length, while 얼마 동안 frames it as a measured period. For a plain "how long does it take," though, the everyday choice is still bare 얼마나 걸려요.

얼마나 beyond questions: "how...!"

One more thing 얼마나 does that surprises English speakers: outside of questions, it forms exclamations of degree, usually closing with 몰라요 ("you wouldn't believe") or a 는지 clause. Here 얼마나 is not asking anything — it is amplifying.

This is the same 얼마나, reused as "to what an extent" in a statement — a good reminder that the "degree" meaning is the true core of the word, and "how much/long/often" are just its question uses.

Answering a 몇 question

When you reply to a 몇 question, the natural answer keeps the same counter the question used, just swapping 몇 for a real number. Ask 몇 명 왔어요? and the answer is 세 명 왔어요 (three people came) — the counter 명 stays put, and the number 셋 takes its pre-counter shape 세. This mirroring is why choosing the right counter matters twice: once to ask, once to answer.

The pre-counter number forms (하나 → 한, 둘 → 두, 셋 → 세, 넷 → 네) and the native-vs-Sino split are the real work here; the 몇 question itself is the easy part. Get comfortable pairing each counter with its number system, and both asking and answering fall out together.

Common Mistakes

1. Using 얼마 for duration or degree. "How long does it take?" is a degree question — that is 얼마나, not the price noun 얼마.

2. Using 얼마나 for a price. The mirror error — asking a shop the degree adverb instead of the price noun.

3. Dropping the counter after 몇. 몇 must be followed by a counter; a bare 몇 with no classifier is ungrammatical for people and things.

4. Using 몇 to ask a price. 몇 counts units; money in a shop is asked with 얼마, not 몇.

Key Takeaways

• 몇 + counter for discrete, countable things (몇 명, 몇 개, 몇 시, 몇 살) — the counter is required, and it dictates the native-vs-Sino number system of the answer.
• 얼마나 (adverb) for degree, duration, distance, frequency — how long, how big, how often.
• 얼마 (noun) for price — how much it costs.
• English "how much / many / long / often" all funnel through one of these three — sort by count vs degree vs price before you speak.