Grammar
N씩
Meaning
BeginnerN ssig
씩 attaches to a quantity and says that the quantity is per unit rather than in total, which produces two readings. Distributive: the amount goes to each unit — 하루 3000매씩 is three thousand tickets for every day, 한 사람에 두 장씩 two tickets each. Repetitive: the amount comes round again and again — 조금씩 늘었습니다 is grew a little at a time, 5분씩 쉽니다 takes a five-minute break each time. Both readings make the same claim, that the number printed is a share and not the whole.
Form
씩 attaches directly to a quantity expression with no space: 3000매씩, 한 개씩, 두 장씩, 5분씩. It needs an amount in front of it, not a bare noun — 두 사람씩 works, 사람씩 does not — and quantity words like 조금, 하나, 절반 take it the same way (조금씩, 하나씩, 절반씩). The unit being distributed over is either stated in front (하루 3000매씩) or carried by 에 or 마다 (한 사람에 한 개씩, 날마다 두 번씩). The result behaves as an adverbial phrase, so nothing needs to follow it, and it can take 이나 for emphasis (하루에 세 번씩이나).
Examples
하루 3000매씩 팝니다.
They sell 3,000 tickets a day.
Common mistakes & nuance
Losing 씩 in translation changes the size of the story. 3000매를 팝니다 is three thousand tickets, full stop; 하루 3000매씩 팝니다 is three thousand every day, so ten days of sales come to thirty thousand. Read 씩 as the signal that the total has not been given yet and has to be worked out from the number of units. The repetitive sense is the one that hides in adverbs — 조금씩, 하나씩, 한 명씩 — where the quantity is deliberately small and 씩 is what supplies the sense of it happening over and over; 조금 늘었습니다 is one small rise, 조금씩 늘었습니다 a series of them. And 씩 always rides on the amount, never on the thing counted: 학생 한 명씩, not 학생씩.
Similar grammar
- 마다
마다 counts the units, 씩 sizes the share, and a statistics sentence often wants both: 날마다 3000매씩. On its own 마다 says something holds at every instance without saying how much (해마다 회의를 합니다), while 씩 gives the amount and leaves the unit to be picked up from the rest of the sentence.
- N별로
Both break a figure up, but only one keeps the parts equal. N별로 names the axis a single total is split along and the parts can be any size (나이별로 응답이 달랐습니다); N씩 hands the same amount to every unit. 별로 also needs a category noun rather than a quantity, which is why ten at a time is 열 개씩 and never 열 개별로.