How To Study Korean Text Book
How To Study Korean Text Book
How To Study Korean Text Book
Grammar
HowToStudyKorean.com
Unit 1: Lesson 1: Basic Korean Sentences
Nouns: Nouns:
한국 = Korea 집 = house
도시 = city 차 = car
이름 = name 사람 = person
저 = I, me (formal) 책 = book
나 = I, me (informal) 컴퓨터 = computer
남자 = man 나무 = tree/wood
여자 = woman 소파 = sofa
이 = this 중국 = China
그 = that 일본 = Japan
저 = that (when something is far away) 문 = door
것 = thing 의사 = doctor
이것 = this thing 학생 = student
그것 = that thing
저것 = that thing Adverbs and Other Words:
의자 = chair 탁 이다 = to be
자 = table 네 = yes 아
선생님 = teacher 니 = no
침대 = bed
Greeting Words
Throughout my lessons, I will only use grammar and vocabulary that you have learned
from a previous lesson. In Unit 0, I taught you how to write words in Korean. Above,
you can see the first set of words you should study to get you started. I have not yet
taught you how to use those words or how conjugate them.
The words for “hello,” “thank you,” “how are you,” and “please” are actually quite
difficult in Korean. There is actually grammar within the words themselves. At this stage,
I would simply memorize these “greeting words” as one unit, and you can worry about
the grammar within them later when it becomes relevant. The words are:
안녕하세요 = hello
감사하다 and 고맙다 are the two words that are commonly used to say "thank you."
However, they are rarely used in those forms and are almost always conjugated. They can
be conjugated in a variety of ways, which will be introduced in Lesson 5 and Lesson 6.
The most common ways to conjugate these words are:
감사합니다
감사해요
고마워 고
맙습니다
고마워요
The way to say “how are you” in Korean is:
Although this is the most literal way to say “how are you” in Korean, it is not as common
as the English expression. Korean people love food, and common way to greet somebody
is to ask them if they have eaten. The idea of asking questions in Korean is taught in
Lesson 21.
제발 = Please
It is, of course, important for you to memorize these expressions in Korean, but you need
to know that there is a reason why they are said that way. For now, don’t worry about
why they are said that way, and simply memorize them. We will get back to them in later
lessons when they become important.
One of the hardest things to wrap your head around in Korean is the alien-like sentence
structure. Essentially, Korean sentences are written in the following order:
I am going to quickly explain what a “subject” and “object” mean, as your ability to
understand later concepts depends on your understanding of this.
The subject refers to person/thing/noun/whatever that is acting. The subject does the
action of the verb. For example, the subject in each sentence below is underlined:
The object refers to whatever the verb is acting on. For example, the object in each
sentence below is underlined
My mom loves me
The dog bit the mailman
He ate rice
Students studied Korean
In English, the object always comes after the verb. However, a sentence with a verb does
not require an object. For example:
I slept
I ate
He died
Sometimes there is no object because it has simply been omitted from the sentence. For
example, “I ate” or “I ate rice” are both correct sentences. Other verbs, by their nature,
cannot act on an object. For example, you cannot place an object after the verbs “to
sleep” or “to go:”
I sleep you
I go you
Subjects are also present in sentences with adjectives. However, there is no object in a
sentence with an adjective. The subjects are underlined in the following adjective-
sentences below:
School is boring
I am boring
The movie was funny
The building is big
My girlfriend is pretty
The food is delicious
Verbs and adjectives are placed at the end of a sentence. Actually, every Korean sentence
and clause must end in one of the following:
- A verb
- An adjective, or
- 이다
I talk about the meaning of 이다 later in this lesson. It is neither a verb nor an adjective,
but it behaves like them. Every verb, every adjective and 이다 end in “다,” and these
are the only words in Korean that can be conjugated.
Korean also has a formality system built into the language. That is, the way one speaks to
an older person who deserves high respect would be different than the way one speaks to
a friend. There are many ways words in a sentence can change depending on the
formality of the situation, but the two most common, basic and important things to be
aware of are:
2) There are many ways to conjugate a word. As we saw above, the word 고맙다 can
be conjugated many different ways. It is important to know which conjugation to use in
which situation. This is taught in Lesson 6. Until Lesson 6, I make no distinction of
formality and the focus is more on sentence structure than conjugations. Until then, you
will see both 나 and 저 arbitrarily used. Don't worry about why one is used over the other
until Lesson 6, when formalities will be explained.
Okay, now that you know all of that, we can talk about making Korean sentences.
는 or 은 (Subject)
This is placed after a word to indicate that it is the subject of a sentence
Use 는 when the last letter of the last syllable of the subject is a vowel. For example:
나 = 나는
저 =저
는
Use 은 when the last letter of the last syllable of the subject is a consonant. For example:
집 = 집은
책 =책
은
를 or 을 (Object)
This is placed after a word to indicate that is the object of a sentence.
Use 를 when the last letter of the last syllable is a vowel:
나 = 나를
저 = 저를
집 = 집을
책 =책
을
We can now make sentences using Korean sentence structure and Korean particles.
1) I speak Korean = I 는 Korean 을 speak
는 is attached to "I" (the subject)
을 is attached to "Korean" (the object)
The same could be done for sentences with adjectives. However, remember that
sentences with adjectives will not have an object:
I am a man
He is a man
They are men
I was a man
They were men
In each of those sentences, a different word (is, am, are, was, were) is used depending on
the subject and tense of the sentence. I can’t imagine how difficult this would be for an
English learner. In Korean, the 이다 is used to represent all of those “to be” words.
Like adjectives, 이다 can not act on an object. Only verbs can act on objects.
For example:
All of those sentences (can) have objects because the verb is the predicate of the sentence.
However, in sentences that are predicated by adjectives, there will not be an object:
I am pretty
She is beautiful
They are hungry
We are smart
Look at those four sentences. When we use adjectives in English, we must also use “to
be” words like am, is and are. In other words, we cannot make sentences like this:
I pretty
She beautiful
They hungry
We smart
Unlike in English, 이다 is not used in these types of sentences. That is, we do not use
이다 to indicate that something “is” an adjective. The structure of sentences predicated
by adjectives is discussed in Lesson 3.
sentences: I am pretty
She is beautiful
They are hungry
We are smart
I am a man
He is a man
They are men
I was a man
They were men
이다 is used to indicate that a noun is a noun. The basic structure for a sentence
predicated by “이다” is:
For example:
I 는 man 이다 = I am a man
Now substitute the words for “man” and “I,” which are:
나=I
남자 = man
나는 남자이다 = I am a man
Notice that 이다 is attached directly to the second noun. Verbs and adjectives are not
attached to nouns like this, but 이다 is. It would be incorrect to include a space between
the second noun and 이다. For example, this would be incorrect:
나는 남자 이다
Although it might look and feel like “남자” is an object in that sentence, it is not. 이다,
like adjectives and unlike verbs cannot act on an object. It would be incorrect to include
the object particle on the second noun. For example, this would be incorrect:
나는 남자를 이다
The focus of this lesson (and Lessons 2, 3 and 4) is to introduce you to simple Korean
sentence structure. Until you reach Lesson 5 and Lesson 6 you will not be exposed to the
conjugations and honorifics of Korean verbs, adjectives and 이다. These words are very
rarely used without conjugations and honorifics.
The conjugation of sentences is very important, but so is the structure of sentences. When
creating these lessons, I went back in forth many times thinking about which one I should
present first. You can’t conjugate sentences if you don’t have a logical sentence to
conjugate; and you can’t create a logical sentence if you don’t know how to conjugate it.
In the end, I figured it would make more sense to present the information this way –
where learners are introduced to sentence structure and then learn how to conjugate the
words within the sentence.
Throughout all of my lessons, I use example sentences to show how grammar can be
used. The example sentences in Lessons 1 – 4 are not conjugated. However, directly
beneath each non-conjugated sentence is a conjugated version of the same sentence in
parenthesis (one formal and one informal conjugation). You might want to glimpse at
how the words are conjugated, but remember that this will be taught in Lessons 5 and 6.
나는 여자이다 = I am a woman
(나는 여자야 / 저는 여자예요)
나는 선생님이다 = I am a teacher
(나는 선생님이야 / 저는 선생님이에요)
나는 사람이다 = I am a person (나
는 사람이야 / 저는 사람이에요)
나는 이다 = I am a
(나는 이야 / 저는 이에요)
You can substitute any word into the blank space to make these sentences.
The words "this" and "that" are often used as the subject of these types of sentences. Let's
now look at how we can apply 이 것 , 그 것 and 저 것 to sentences with 이 다 .
This and That (이/그/저)
You can see in the vocabulary above that the word for “this” is 이 in Korean.
We use 이 in Korean when we are talking about something that is within touching
distance (For example: this pen - i.e. the one I am holding). Just like in English "이"
(this) is placed before the noun it is describing. For example:
이 사람 = This person
이 남자 = This man
이 여자 = This
woman 이 차 = This
car
이 탁자 = This table
이 의자 = This chair
Unfortunately, there are two words for “that”: 그 and 저. Early learners of Korean are
always confused with the difference between “그” and “저.”
We use 그 when we are talking about something from a previous sentence or from
previous context, regardless of if you could see it or not. Providing examples would be
too difficult right now because you do not know any Korean sentences. However, if I
were to say: “I don’t like that man [when your friend mentioned him in a previous
sentence].” The word “that” in that sentence would be how “그” is used.
We use 저 when we are talking about something that we can see, but cannot touch
because it is too far away.
We can place “그” or “저” before a noun to describe “this” or “that” thing just like we
did with “이.”
이 사 람 = This
person 그 사 람 =
That person 저 사 람
= That person
이 남 자 = This
man 그 남 자 =
That man 저 남 자
= That man
이 여 자 = This
woman 그 여 자 =
That woman 저 여 자
= That woman
이 의 자 = This
chair 그 의 자 =
That chair 저 의 자
= That chair
이 탁 자 = This
table 그 탁 자 =
That table 저 탁 자
= That table
Again, although the English translations of “그” and “저” are the same, it is
important to remember that they do not have the same meaning in Korean.
One of the most common words in Korean is “것” meaning “thing.” When 이, 그 or 저
are placed before “것,” the result is a compound word. Therefore, when placing “것”
after 이, 그 or 저, there should not be a space between the two. In other words, the
following are words in and within themselves, and not two separate words:
이 것 = this
thing 그 것 =
that thing 저 것
= that thing
We see this same phenomenon happen with other common words that you learn in
future lessons. You don’t need to worry about this now, but we see this same thing
happen with the word 곳 (meaning “place”) and 때 (meaning “time”).
With these words, the word “thing” isn’t necessary in the English translation. Let me
explain.
I’ll use “that” as an example, but the same idea can be applied to the word “this.”
That person
That man
That woman
I like that
In this type of English sentence, “that” is referring to some thing that you like. It is a
noun. It is a thing.
In this same respect, while “이, 그 and 저” translate to “this, that and that” respectively,
and are placed before nouns to indicate “this noun, that noun and that noun,” “이것, 그것
and 저것” are nouns (they are pronouns). Therefore, they do not need to be followed by
the redundant word “thing,” although their meanings would be exactly the same:
I like this
I like this thing
I like that
I like that thing
We can now use these nouns as subjects or objects in a sentence. We will look at how
they can be used with “이다” next.
And then changing the English words to the appropriate Korean words:
그 사람은 + 의사 + 이다
그 사람은 의사이다
(그 사람은 의사야 / 그 사람은 의사예요)
More examples:
그 사람은 선생님이다 = That person is a teacher
(그 사람은 선생님이야 / 그 사람은 선생님이에
요)
Wow! That was an extremely difficult lesson. If you were to pick up another Korean
textbook, I am sure the first chapter would be much easier than this. Trust me though;
learning this at the start will be very useful to you later on. When I was learning how to
speak Korean, it took me months to realize some of these things (not because they were
hard, but because I was using a text book that never taught me the reason why things are
the way they are in Korean).
Unit 1: Lesson 2: Particles 이/가
Nouns: Nouns:
나라 = country 캐나다 = Canada 호텔 = hotel 학교 =
school 은행 = bank
가방 = bag, backpack
창문 = window 잡지 = magazine 방 = Verbs:
room
냉장고 = refrigerator 있다 = to have
개 = dog 강아지 = puppy 고양이 = cat
있다 = to be at a location
쥐 = rat
펜 = pen 전화기 = phone 커피 = coffee
식당 = restaurant 건물 = building 텔레비 Adverbs 안 = inside 위 = on top 밑 =
전 = television 미국 = USA below 옆 = beside
뒤 = behind 앞 = in front 여기 = here
Introduction
In Lesson 1 you learned about simple Korean particles. To review, you learned that:
~는 or ~은 are used to indicate the subject (or main person/thing) in a sentence.
~를 or ~을 are used to indicate the object in a sentence.
For example, in this sentence: “I ate a hamburger”
In this Lesson, you will learn about the particles ~이/가 and specifically how it can
compare with ~는/은. In all situations, ~이 is attached to nouns in which the last letter is
a consonant (like ~은) and ~가 is attached to nouns in which the last letter is a vowel
(like ~는). For example:
있다 = to have
있다 = to be at a location
Let’s talk about the first usage, “to have.” In English, “to have” is a verb that can act on
an object. For example:
I have a pen
I have a car
This usage of 있다 in Korean is an adjective. This is hard for a learner to wrap their head
around. At this point, this is important to you for one reason.
You learned in Lesson 1 that sentences with adjectives cannot act on an object. Thus, you
cannot have a word with the particle ~을/를 attached to it if the predicating word in a
sentence is an adjective (because ~을/를 indicates an object in a sentence). If this weren’t
the case, we could do the following to make the sentence “I have a pen:”
I 는 pen 을 있다 나
는 + 펜을 + 있다
나는 펜을 있다 = I have a pen
However, the sentence above is incorrect. 있다 is an adjective and cannot act on an
object like this. Therefore, the use of ~을 on “펜” is incorrect. To get around this, we can
attach ~이/가 to the object instead of ~을/를 in sentences with 있다. This is one usage of
the particle ~이/가; that is, to indicate the thing that a person “has” in sentences with “있
다.” Look at the following example sentences:
나는 펜이 있다 = I have a pen
(나는 펜이 있어 / 저는 펜이 있어요)
나는 차가 있다 = I have a car
(나는 차가 있어 / 저는 차가 있어요)
나는 잡지가 있다 = I have a magazine (나
는 잡지가 있어 / 저는 잡지가 있어요)
~에 is also used to denote the time in which something happens. This is similar to the
underlined words in the English sentences below:
Yes, it is possible to have ~에 used twice in a sentence. For example, the Korean
translation of the sentence “I went to the park at 10:00” would have ~에 attached to
the word “park” and “10:00.”
It would be too much to discuss how ~에 can be used in all of these situations in this
lesson. In this lesson (just below), you will learn how to use ~에 to indicate where one is
– in order to create the sentence “I am at school” from above. In later lessons, as you
learn more complex words and grammar, you will see how ~에 can be used in the other
situations. For example, in the next lesson we will introduce you to sentences that use
~에 to denote a place in which one goes to. In Lesson 6, you will see examples of
sentences that use ~에 to denote that something happens at a particular time of the day. In
Lesson 8, you will learn how to attach ~에 to days of the week. In later lessons, you will
learn how to create all of the sentences shown above.
For now, let’s focus on the sentence “I am at school,” which will require you to learn
about 있다.
있다: To be at a location
있다 can also be used to indicate that something/someone is “at a location.” In Lesson 1
you learned about the particle ~에 in Korean. You learned that this particle is used to
indicate the place and/or time of something in a sentence. Therefore, “~에” is often used
in sentences with “있다” to indicate the location of something/someone.
나는 학교에 있다 = I am at school
(나는 학교에 있어 / 저는 학교에 있어요)
Another example:
나는 캐나다에 있다 = I am in Canada
(나는 캐나다에 있어 / 저는 캐나다에 있어요)
Notice the very big difference in meaning between the following sentences, and the role
that particles have in each case. Because 있다 has two different meanings, changing the
particles in a sentence can drastically change the meaning. For example:
나는 학교가 있다 = I have a school – this could make sense, but in most situations, you
would probably want to say:
나는 학교에 있다 = I am at school
We can also use position words to indicate specifically where someone/something is with
respect to another noun. The most common position words are:
안 = inside
위 = on top
밑 = below
옆 = beside
뒤 = behind
앞 = in front
These words are placed after a noun to indicate where an object is with respect to that
noun. The particle “~에” is then attached directly to the position words. For example:
나는 학교에 있다 = I am at school
나는 학교 앞에 있다 = I am in-front of the school
(나는 학교 앞에 있어 / 저는 학교 앞에 있어요)
나는 캐나다에 있다 = I am in Canada
(나는 캐나다에 있어 / 저는 캐나다에 있어요)
식당은 은행 옆에 있다 = The restaurant is next to the bank (식
당은 은행 옆에 있어 / 식당은 은행 옆에 있어요)
In addition to this, there are more functions of ~이/가 that you should know about.
In Lesson 1, you learned that you should add ~는/은 to the subject of the sentence. To
use an example using the grammar taught earlier in this Lesson, you could say:
In this sentence, notice that the particle ~는/은 indicates that the “cat” is the subject.
The two sentences could have exactly the same meaning and feeling. I emphasize “could”
because in some situations the meaning of the two sentences is exactly the same, but in
other situations the meaning of two sentences can be subtly different. This entirely
depends on the situation of the conversation (what was said before, how it was said,
etc…).
However, saying:
고양이가 집 뒤에 있다 = The cat is behind the house
…is simply stating a fact, and “the cat” is not being compared to anything.
Another example:
커피가 냉장고에 있다 = The coffee is in the fridge (This sentence is simply stating that
the coffee is in the fridge, and there is no intention of comparison)
커피는 냉장고에 있다 = The coffee is in the fridge (This sentence could simply be
stating that the coffee is in the fridge. It is also possible that the speaker is trying to
distinguish between the location of another object. For example, perhaps the tea is on the
table, but the coffee is in the fridge).
You also might be wondering why “안” isn’t used if we are indicating that the coffee is
in the fridge. In cases like this, where the location being described happens to be
“inside” of something, “안” can be omitted. You can see the similarities of using “안”
and not using it in the following English and Korean sentences:
Note that this “comparative” function of ~는/은 can be used in much more complicated
sentences, and can be attached to other grammatical principles – neither of which you
have learned yet. In future lessons, not only will you see examples of increasing
complexity applying this concept, but its usage with other grammatical principles will be
introduced specifically. You need to remember that the example sentences given at this
level are incredibly simple and do not really reflect actual sentences that you are likely to
hear as one-off sentences from Korean people. Real speech is much more complex and it
usually is an intricate combination of many clauses and grammatical principles.
Our lessons don’t really get into the use of multiple clauses until Lesson 24. Creating
sentences with more than one clause opens an entire other can of worms that you don’t
have the tools to deal with yet. I encourage you to NOT read ahead to that lesson. Rather,
I encourage you to keep the information from this lesson in mind as you eventually do
reach that level.
As you progress through our Lessons, you will see both “~는/은” and “~이/가” used as
the subject particles in the thousands of example sentences we have provided. As almost
all of our example sentences are just written as one sentence (without any background,
prior context, or explanation of the situation), there is no way to tell if something is being
compared to – and thus – their usage is usually arbitrary. That being said – every Korean
example sentence throughout all of our lessons is always checked by a native Korean
speaker to make sure that nothing is awkward (or incorrect).
In addition to the distinction discussed in this lesson, there are other situations where it
might be more appropriate to use ~이/가 or ~은/는. However, I am not able to fully
describe the distinction between these two particles with the limited amount of grammar
(and vocabulary) understanding you have to this point. The purpose of this lesson is to
give you a general understanding of ~이/가, and to introduce you to the comparison
between ~는/은.
At this point, I would like you to continue to Lesson 3 to continue learning other
grammatical principles you need to deepen your understanding of Korean in general.
In Lessons 17 and 22, we will come back to this problem and dive into more ways we can
distinguish the functions of ~이/가 and ~는/은. I want to stress that I do not want you to
read these now, but you should know that there is more to distinguishing ~는/은 and
~이/가 than is described here.
If you haven’t reached Lesson 17 (and especially if you haven’t even moved on to Lesson
3) you won’t understand what is being described in that lesson. Being able to fully
understand the difference between ~이/가 and ~는/은 is important, but not as important
(at the moment) as understanding other aspects of Korean grammar. I can’t stress this
enough – your understanding of the difference between the two will progress with your
Korean development in general.
The good thing is, even if you make a mistake with the usages of ~이/가 and ~는/은
(either because you are confused or because you haven’t reached the later lessons yet),
99.9% of the time, the listener will be able to understand exactly what you are trying to
express. Likewise, if you listen to somebody speaking, you will be able to understand
what they are trying to say regardless of if you have learned the more complex usages of
~이/가 and ~는/은. The difference between these two particles is about nuance and does
not dramatically change the meaning of the sentence.
Making a mistake between other particles, however, would cause other people to
misunderstand you. For example, using ~를/을 instead of ~는/은 would (most likely)
make your sentence incomprehensible.
That’s it for this lesson. Please keep all of this information in your mind for future
lessons. We will continue this discussion in Lesson 17. For now, please continue to
Lesson 3.
Nouns: Verbs:
음식 = food 먹다 = to eat
케이크 = cake 가다 = to go
공항 = airport 만나다 = to meet
병원 = hospital 닫다 = to close
공원 = park 열다 = to open
한국어 = Korean (language) 원하다 = to want (an object)
머리 = head 만들다 = to make
다리 = leg 하다 = to do
손가락 = finger 말하다 = to speak
귀 = ear 이해하다 = to understand
팔 = arm 좋아하다 = to like
눈 = eye Adjectives:
입 = mouth 크다 = to be big
배 = stomach 작다 = to be small
버스 = bus 새롭다 = to be new
배 = boat 낡다 = to be old (not age)
우리 = we/us 비싸다 = to be expensive
Adverbs: 싸다 = to be not expensive, to be
아주 = very cheap 아름답다 = to be beautiful
매우 = very 뚱뚱하다 = to be fat, to be
너무 = too (often used to mean ‘very’) chubby 길다 = to be long
좋다 = to be good
2) You should notice (it took me months to notice) that every Korean verb and adjective
ends with the syllable ‘다.’ 100% of the time, the last syllable in a verb or adjective must
be ‘다.’ Look up at the vocabulary from this lesson if you don’t believe me.
3) In addition to ending in ‘다’ many verbs and adjectives end with the two syllables ‘하
다.’ ‘하다’ means ‘do.’ Verbs ending in 하다 are amazing, because you can simply
eliminate the ‘하다’ to make the noun form of that verb/adjective.
Confused? I was at first too. In fact, I don’t think I knew this until 3 months after I started
studying Korean – but it is something so essential to learning the language. It is confusing
to English speakers because we don’t realize that words can have a verb/adjective form
AND a noun form.
For example:
행복하다 = happy
행복 = happiness
성공하다 = succeed
성공 = success
말하다 = speak
말 = speech/words
성취하다 = achieve
성취 = achievement
취득하다 = acquire
취득 = acquisition
You don’t need to memorize those words yet (they are difficult), but it is important for
you to realize that ‘하다’ can be removed from words in order to create nouns.
Verbs/adjectives that end in "~하다" are typically of Chinese origin and have an equivalent
Hanja (한자) form. Verbs that do not end in "~하다" are of Korean origin and do not have
a Hanja form. If you can speak Chinese, you will probably have an advantage at learning
more difficult Korean vocabulary, as a lot of difficult Korean words have a Chinese origin.
Korean Verbs
We have already talked about verbs a little bit in previous lessons, but nothing has been
formally taught. You learned the basic verb sentence structure in Lesson 1. Let’s look at
this again. If you want to say “I eat food” you should know how to use the particles 는/은
and 를/을:
“I eat food”
I 는 food 를 eat
To make a sentence, you simply need to substitute the English words with Korean words:
저는 + 음식을 + 먹다
저는 음식을 먹다 = I eat food
Although the structure of the sentences presented in this lesson is perfect, the verbs
are not conjugated, and thus, not perfect. You will learn about conjugating in Lesson
5 and Lesson 6. Before learning how to conjugate, however, it is essential that you
understand
the word-order of these sentences. However, because of some strange Korean
grammatical rules, the sentences provided in the "Adjectives" section are technically
perfect but are presented in an uncommon (but simplest) conjugation pattern. Again,
you will learn about these conjugations in Lesson 5 and Lesson 6. For now, try to
understand the word order of the sentences and how the verbs/adjectives are being
used. As with previous lessons, conjugated examples (one formal and one informal)
are provided beneath the un-conjugated example:
Remember that sentences with verbs don’t necessarily need to have an object in them:
저는 이해하다 = I understand
(나는 이해해 / 저는 이해해요)
Some verbs by default cannot act on an object. Words like: sleep, go, die, etc. You cannot
say something like "I slept home", or "I went restaurant", or "I died her." You can use
nouns in sentences with those verbs, but only with the use of other particles - some of
which you have learned already (~에) and some that you will learn in later lessons. With
the use of other particles you can say things like:
I slept at home
I went to the restaurant
I died with her
We will get into more complicated particles in later lessons, but here I want to focus on
the purpose of ~를/을 and its function as an object particle.
Korean Adjectives
Korean adjectives, just like Korean verbs are placed at the end of a sentence. The main
difference between verbs and adjectives is that an adjective can never act on an object.
Notice in the sentences below that there is no object being acted on. Adjectives are very
easy to use. Just put them into the sentence with your subject: (Remember that the
examples in parentheses show sentences that have been conjugated which you have not
learned yet.)
나는 아름답다 = I am beautiful
(나는 아름다워 / 저는 아름다워요)
나는 작다 = I am small
(나는 작아 / 저는 작아요)
There is one confusing thing about translating sentences with Korean adjectives to
English. Notice that in all examples above, the words "am/is/are/etc..." are used. In
English, these words must be used when using an adjective:
I am fat
He is fat
They are fat
Remember, the translation for "am/is/are" to Korean is "이다." However, you do not use
"이다" when writing a sentence like this in Korean. Within the meaning of Korean
adjective is "is/am/are." Early learners are always confused by this. The confusion stems
from the fact that it is done differently in English and Korean. Please, from here on,
abandon what you know of grammar based on English - it will only hold you back.
의 Possessive Particle
Note: The pronunciation of the letter "ㅢ" can change depending on how and when it is
used. You might want to check out the section where I discuss the pronunciation of ㅢ in
the Pronunciation Guide of Unit 0.
You already know that ‘I’ in Korean is 저/나. You also know the translation for various
objects in Korean.
"의" is a particle that indicates that one is the owner/possessor of another object. It has
the same role as " 's" in English (for most examples). For example:
저의 책 = my book
저의 차 = My car
저의 손가락 = my finger
그 사람의 차 = That person's car
의사의 탁자 = The doctor's table
선생님의 차 = the teacher’s car
You can use these words in sentences you already know (with verbs and adjectives):
You will find that words like “my/our/their/his/her” are often omitted from sentences. As
you will learn continuously throughout your Korean studies, Korean people love
shortening their sentences wherever possible. Whenever something can be assumed by
context, words are often omitted from sentences to make them more simple. For example:
In this case (and many others like it) you are clearly meeting “your” friend, so the word
“my” can be omitted from the sentence.
Always try to stay away from translating sentences directly, and try to focus more on
translating sentences based on context as done above.
좋다 and 좋아하다
The word 좋다 in Korean is an adjective that means “good.” Because 좋다 is an
adjective we can use it just like any other adjective:
There is also 좋아하다 which is a verb meaning ‘to like.’ Because 좋아하다 is a verb,
can use it just like any other verb:
좋아하다 gets formed by removing ‘다’ from 좋다 and adding 아 + 하다. There is a
reason for why this is done, and there is an explanation for how it is done - but you do not
need to know this yet. For now, just understand that:
I like you
We like you
However, if the word is the object in a sentence, the word “us” is used. For example:
He likes me
He likes us
In Korean, they do not make this distinction, and “우리” is used in both situations. For
example:
By placing the possessive particle “의” after “우리” we can create the meaning of “our”.
While this can be done, I feel it is much more common to omit this particle when it is used
with “우리.” In fact, the particle “의” is very commonly omitted from words other than
“우리” as well. However, I don’t suggest thinking about doing this until you have a better
grasp of the language. At this point, I only suggest that you do this with “우리.” For
example:
Nouns: Verbs:
길 = street 오다 = to come
거리 = street, road 끝내다 = to finish something
손 = hand 춤추다 = to dance
영어 = English 알다 = to know
택시 = taxi 걷다 = to walk
열차 = train 배우다 = to learn
역 = train/subway station 연습하다 = to practice
버스 정류장 = bus stop 생각하다 = to think
비행기 = airplane 살다 = to live
자전거 = bicycle Adjectives:
아내 = wife 위험하다 = to be dangerous
아이 = child 잘생기다 = to be handsome
아들 = son 못생기다 = to be ugly
딸 = daughter 피곤하다 = to be tired
남편 = husband 다르다 = to be different
아버지 = father 슬프다 = to be sad
어머니 = mother 맛있다 = to be delicious
편지 = letter 재미있다 = to be funny, to be fun
맛 = taste 많다 = to be many, to be a lot of
식사 = meal 행복하다 = to be happy
아침 = morning Adverbs and Other Words:
아침식사 = breakfast 거기 = there
물 = water 저기 = there (when farther away)
사과 = apple 지금 = now
돈 = money 하지만 = but
Passive Verbs:
끝나다 = to be finished
Now that we have gotten that out of the way, let’s start studying some actual material.
But what if you want to say: “I want a big boat.” In that sentence, there is a verb and an
adjective. Where should we put the adjective? In Korean when describing a noun, the
adjective is placed in the same position as in English. For example:
Simple. So we just substitute the Korean word for big (크다) into that sentence?:
나는 크다 배를 원하다 = Not correct. Not by a long shot.
- Yes, but the version of the word with ‘다’ as the last syllable is simply the dictionary
form of that word and is rarely used. Every verb/adjective in Korean has a ‘stem,’ which
is made up of everything preceding 다 in the dictionary form of the word. Let’s look at
some examples:
크다 = 크 (stem) + 다
작다 = 작 (stem) + 다
좋다 = 좋 (stem) + 다
배우다 = 배우 (stem) + 다
When you deal with a verb/adjective, you eliminate ~다 and add something to the stem.
What you add depends on what you are doing. When you want to make an adjective that
can describe a noun, for example:
small boy
big boat
soft hand
delicious hamburger
you must eliminate ‘~다’ and add ~ㄴ or ~은 to the stem of the adjective. Words in
which the last syllable of the stem ends in a vowel (크다/비싸다/싸다) you add ~ㄴ
to the last syllable. For example:
Word Stem Adjective that can describe a noun Example Translation
크다 크 큰 큰배 Big boat
싸다 싸 싼 싼것 Cheap thing
Words in which the last syllable of the stem ends in a consonant (작다/좋다/많다) you
add ~은 to the stem. For example:
작다 작 작은 작은 남자 Small man
좋다 좋 좋은 좋은 아들 Good son
많다 많 많은 많은 돈 A lot of money
The key to understanding this is being able to understand the difference between the
following:
The first example is a sentence. The second example is not a sentence. The second
sentence needs more words in order for it to be a sentence. You need to add either a verb
or adjective that predicates the noun of "expensive food." For example:
Remember, for the last time - you do not know how to conjugate verbs and adjectives
at the end of a sentence yet. This will be introduced in the next lesson. Because you
do not know how to conjugate verbs/adjectives at the ends of sentences, examples
with un conjugated forms are presented in this lesson. Remember that these sentences
are technically incorrect, but understanding them is crucial to your understanding of
the Korean sentence structure.
As with the previous three lessons, I have provided conjugated examples below each
un conjugated example. You will probably not be able to understand these
conjugations.)
In Lessons 1 and 2, I explained that adjectives cannot "act" on objects. Many learners
look at the sentences above and say "Hey! Those sentences have an object and an
adjective!" Adjectives cannot act on an object to predicate a sentence. This means you
cannot use a sentence like this (in either language):
나는 집을 작다 = I small house
However, I didn't say anything about adjectives and objects being used in the same
sentence. Adjectives can be used to describe an object that is being predicated by a verb.
I will continue to talk about this in the examples below.
In the examples above, notice the difference in function between when an adjective is
used to describe a noun compared to when it is used to predicate a sentence. For example:
----------------------
나는 작은 집에 가다 = I go to the small house
(나는 작은 집에 가 / 저는 작은 집에 가요)
The verb "to go" predicates this sentence.
In each of the examples above, even though the adjective always acts as a descriptive
word, in the cases when they are placed before nouns to describe them - those nouns are
able to be placed anywhere in the sentence (for example, as the subject, object, location,
or other places).
This same thing happens in English, where I can have a simple sentence like this:
I can use adjectives to describe each noun in the sentence. For example:
You will see some adjectives that end in "~있다." The most common of these for a
beginner are:
맛있다 = delicious
재미있다 = fun, funny
When an adjective ends in “~있다” like this, instead of attaching ~ㄴ/은 to the stem, you
must attach ~는 to the stem. For example:
The difference here is due to what I call the "~는 것" principle. For now, you do not need
to think about why ~는 is added instead of ~ㄴ/은. It is sufficient at this point to just
memorize it as an exception. The concept behind this grammatical rule is introduced in
Lesson 26 and I continue to discuss it into other Lessons in Unit 2. This concept is related
to verbs being able to describe nouns. For example:
"The man who I met yesterday will go to the park that I want to go to"
However, this is very complex and is the whole basis to the ~는 것 principle that I
mentioned earlier. As I said, you will begin to learn about this in Lesson 26.
To be a lot of: 많다
A good way to practice your understanding of how adjectives can be used to describe a
noun in a sentence or to predicate an entire sentence is to apply your knowledge to the
word "많다." 많다 is an adjective that describes that there is "many' or "a lot" of
something. Its translation to English usually depends on how it is used in a sentence. For
example, when used to describe nouns in a sentence, it can be used in the following way:
사람이 많다
In your Korean studies, you need to realize that it is never effective to think of a Korean
sentence as an exact translation in English. The fact is, Korean and English grammar are
completely different, and trying to force the rules/structure of English into Korean is
unnatural. If we stuck with the translation of "a lot of" for the meaning of "많다" and
forced the English translation to the sentence "사람이 많다", we would get:
... But that clearly is not accurate. Instead, what is the sentence "사람이 많다" describing?
It is describing that there is a lot of something, therefore, the translation should be:
Therefore, when 많다 predicates a sentence, its translation is usually "There is/are a lot
of...". Here is another example:
Of course, this can be applied to very complex sentences as well, but this is just the very
beginning. Eventually, you will be able to make a sentence like:
There are a lot of singers who become famous and spend all of their money too quickly
This sentence as well would also end in "많다." The structure would basically be:
(singers who become famous and spend all of their money too quickly) 가 많다
You are still very far from understanding how complex sentences like that work, but I
want to show you that the content you learned in this lesson brings you one step closer.
Also notice that the particles 이/가 are attached to the subjects in sentences ending with
"많다." There are some words where the use of the particles ~이/가 on the subject of the
sentence is more natural than the use of ~는/은. 많다 is one of these words. We will
continue to tell you in which situations it is more natural to use ~이/가 instead of ~은/는
as we progress through our lessons.
~ Particle 도
~도 is another particle that is very useful in Korean. It has the meaning of “too/as well.”
It can replace the subject particles (는/은) OR the object particles (를/을), depending on
what you are saying “too” with. For example:
Make sure you notice the difference between the previous two examples. In English these
two are written the same, but sound different when speaking.
In the first example, you are emphasizing that YOU also speak Korean, in addition to
other people that you are talking about. In the second example, you are emphasizing that
(in addition to other languages), you also speak Korean.
Notice the difference in pronunciation in English. The first one has the meaning of “other
people eat some apples, but I too eat some apples.”
The second example has the meaning of “I eat some other food as well, but I also eat
apples.” It is important to recognize that whatever noun "~도" is attached to (the subject
or object) is the thing that is being expressed as "too."
More examples:
나도 그것을 알다 = I know that, too
(나도 그것을 알아 / 저도 그것을 알아요)
Nouns: Adjectives:
동생 = younger sibling 지루하다 = to be boring
남동생 = younger brother 마르다 = for a person to be too thin
여동생 = younger sister 멀다 = to be far away
형 = older brother, when you are a man 오 마르다 = to be dry
빠 = older brother, when you are a woman 비슷하다 = to be similar
누나 = older sister, when you are a man 싫다 = to not be good
언니 = older sister, when you are a 오래되다 = for an object to be old
woman 삼촌 = uncle Adverbs and Other Words:
오늘 = today
이모 = aunt (on mother’s side)
월요일 = Monday
고모 = aunt (on father’s side)
화요일 = Tuesday
아저씨 = older man not related to you 아
수요일 = Wednesday
주머니 = older woman not related to you
목요일 = Thursday
할아버지 = grandfather
금요일 = Friday
할머니 = grandmother 토요일 = Saturday
친구 = friend 일요일 = Sunday
사진 = picture 어제 = Yesterday
안경 = glasses 내일 = tomorrow
비밀 = secret 모레 = the day after tomorrow
비 = rain 년 = year
가게 = store/shop 일 = day
박물관 = museum 시간 = time
가스 레인지 = stove (gas range) Verbs:
오리 = duck (animal) 싫어하다 = to not like
꼬리 = tail 떠나다 = to leave a place
Verbs: 농담하다 = to joke
보고싶다 = to miss a person 던지다 = to throw
기대하다 = to expect
건너다 = to cross (a road/etc)
In Korean, the same word is used to say “I” or “me.” That is, there is no difference in
the Korean word if it used as a subject or object. However, remember that different
particles will have to be attached to these words.
Although the word in Korean for “I/me” doesn’t change based on its usage in a
sentence, it does change based on the politeness of a sentence. For example:
저 means “I/me” and is used in formal situations
나 means “I/me” and is used in informal situations
내가
제가
(I am purposely not providing example sentences because you still haven’t
learned proper conjugations. You will finally learn about conjugations in this
lesson)
In the lesson below, all of the sentences are conjugated in an informal style. Therefore,
all of the example sentences below use the informal “나” or “내.” In this lesson, don’t
worry about formality and just focus on the information that I present. In the next
lesson, you will learn more about formal and informal speech, and you will see “저”
and “제” being used.
1) Most of the time, you use somebody’s (usually job) position when referring to
them or talking about them. For example, boss (부장님), principal (교장선생
님), vice principal (교감선생님), Mr. Name (for a teacher) (Name 선생님),
customer (고객님), guest (손님), 회장님/사장님 (president/CEO of a
company).
3) You can usually call any woman or man that looks very old “grandmother”
and “grandfather” (할머니/할아버지). But other than that, you don’t really
call somebody part of your family unless you are close with that person.
4) You can generally call any strange man or woman that you don’t know ‘아저
씨’ (man) and ‘아주머니’ (woman).
5) In informal situations, you can use the word “너.” ~는 and ~를 can attach to
“너” when “you” is the subject or object of a sentence, respectively. If ~가 is
added to ~너, it changes to “네가.” In order to distinguish the pronunciation
of “네가” and “내가” from each other (which, technically should be
pronounced the same), “네가” is pronounced as “knee-ga.”
6) The word “당신” means “you.” You may use this word when talking to
anybody, but Korean people rarely use it. Most people that say ‘당신’ are
foreigners and only do so because they are so used to saying “you” in English.
The only part of speech that gets conjugated in Korean is verbs and adjectives. As
you already know, a sentence must end in either a verb or adjective.
Let’s look at how to conjugate verbs and adjectives in the past, present and future tenses
Verbs
Present Tense
When the last syllable of a stem ends in a consonant, you add ~는다 to the
stem: a. 먹다 = 먹는다 = to eat (먹 + 는다)
b. 닫다 = 닫는다 = to close (닫 + 는다)
Examples:
나는 문을 닫는다 = I close the door
나는 밥을 먹는다 = I eat rice
When the last syllable of the stem ends in a vowel, you add ~ㄴ to the last
syllable followed by 다
c. 배우다 = 배운다 = to learn (배우 + ㄴ다)
d. 이해하다 = 이해한다 = to understand (이해하 + ㄴ다)
e. 가다 = 간다 = to go (가 + ㄴ다)
Examples:
나는 친구를 만난다 = I meet a friend
나는 그것을 이해한다 = I understand that
나는 한국어를 배운다 = I learn Korean
나는 집에 간다 = I go home
Past Tense
Before you learn this, you need to know something important. Korean grammar is
based on adding things directly to verbs or adjectives to have a specific meaning.
This is a little bit confusing for you right now because this is really the first time you
have heard about
this. Well, actually, in the section above, you did this. Remember, to conjugate to
the present tense, you must add the following to verbs:
- ~는다 if the stem ends in a consonant and ~ㄴ다 if the stem ends in a vowel
Notice that some of these grammatical principles require the addition of “~아/어.”
Many grammatical principles (or conjugations, or any other thing) require the
addition of “~아/어” to the stem of a verb or adjective. Notice that the “slash”
indicates that you need to choose what actually gets added to the stem. In some cases
it is “~아”, and in some cases it is “~어”. The following is the rule that you can use
to determine if you should add “~아” or “~어”:
- If the last vowel in a stem is ㅏ or ㅗ (this includes rare cases of the last vowel
being ㅑ or ㅛ) you add ~아 followed by the remainder of the grammatical
principle. (The only exception is "하." If the last syllable in a stem is "하", ~여
must be added to the stem followed by the remainder of the grammatical
principle instead of ~아.
- If the last vowel in a stem is anything but ㅏ or ㅗ you add ~어 followed by
the remainder of the grammatical principle
When conjugating to the past tense, we need to add “~았/었다” to the stem of a word
(or 였다 in the case of 하다). Following the rule above, ~았다 is added to words with
the last vowel being ㅗ or ㅏ and ~었다 is added to words with the last vowel being
anything but ㅏ or ㅗ. Finally, ~였다 is added to words with the last syllable being
"하." For example:
What makes this complicated (at first) is that for verbs that have a last syllable that end
in a vowel (including 하다), the ~았다/었다 gets merged to the actual stem itself.
This is how ~아 and ~어 (and ~여) merge with syllables ending in a vowel:
아 + 아 = 아 (example: 가 + 았다 = 갔다)
오 + 아 = 와 (example: 오+ 았다 = 왔다)
우 + 어 = 워 (example: 배우+ 었다 = 배웠다)
이 + 어 = 여 (example: 끼+ 었다 = 꼈다)
어 + 어 = 어 (example: 나서 + 었다 = 나섰다)
여 + 어 = 여 (example: 켜다 + 었다 = 켰다)
하 + 여 = 해 (example: 공부하다 + 였다 = 공부했다)
Although 하 + 여 can be written as "해," there will be some situations (usually
official documents) where you will see “하여” used instead of “해”:
Words where the last vowel is “ㅡ” (for example: 잠그다) are complicated and will
be covered in Lesson 7.
Many people have asked me “what if the last vowel in a stem is a more complicated
vowel, like ㅠ, ㅑ, ㅔ, etc…?” You will find that the stem of almost all verbs and
adjectives in Korean do not end in these complex vowels. The most common words I
can think of that have stem that ends in one of these complex vowels are:
With these words (and others like it), the same rule applies as above. That is, the
final vowel does not end in ㅏ or ㅗ, so we need to add “어” plus whatever we are
adding. With these complex vowels, it is irrelevant if you merge the addition to the
stem. Both forms (merged and non-merged) would be correct. For example:
바래 + 었다 = 바랬다 or 바래었다
매다 + 었다 = 맸다 or 매었다
메다 + 었다 = 멨다 or 메었다
가다 = to go
The last vowel in the stem is ㅏ. So we add 았다 to the stem.
나는 박물관에 가았다
But, because the stem ends in a vowel, 았다 can merge with 가:
나는 박물관에 갔다 = I went to the museum
오다 = to come
The last vowel in the stem is ㅗ. So we add 았다 to the
stem. 삼촌은 가게에 오았다
But, because the stem ends in a vowel, 았다 can merge with
오: 삼촌은 가게에 왔다 = (My) uncle came to the store
배우다 = to learn
The last vowel in the stem is ㅜ. So we add 었다 to the
stem. 오빠는 영어를 배우었다
But, because the stem ends in a vowel, 었다 can merge with
우: 오빠는 영어를 배웠다 = (My) older brother learned
English
던지다 = to throw
The last vowel in the stem is ㅣ. So we add 었다 to the
stem. 나는 공을 던지었다
But, because the stem ends in a vowel, 었다 can merge with
지: 나는 공을 던졌다 = I threw the ball
건너다 = to cross
The last vowel in the stem is ㅓ. So we add 었다 to the
stem. 나는 길을 건너었다
But, because the stem ends in a vowel, 었다 can merge with
어: 나는 길을 건넜다 = I crossed the street
만나다 = to meet
The last vowel in the stem is ㅏ. So we add 았다 to the
stem. 나는 친구를 만나았다
But, because the stem ends in a vowel, 았다 can merge with
나: 나는 친구를 만났다 = I met friends
공부하다 = to study
The last vowel in the stem is 하. So, we add 였다 to the
stem. 나는 한국어를 공부하였다
But, 하 and 여 can be merged to formed 해:
나는 한국어를 공부했다 = I studied Korean
Future Tense
Future tense is easy, and is simply a matter of adding “~겠다” to the stem of a word.
Unlike the past and present tense conjugations, there is no difference if the stem ends
in a vowel or a consonant. For example:
나는 먹다 = I eat (unconjugated)
나는 먹겠다 = I will eat
나는 가다 = I go (unconjugated)
나는 가겠다 = I will go
Two verbs specifically that are often conjugated in the future tense without actually
having a meaning in the future tenses are 알다 (to know) and 모르다 (to not know).
I don’t want to make any example sentences (because they would be too
complicated at this point), but it would be good to remember that the words 알다
and 모르다 are often conjugated to 알겠다 or 모르겠다. Although they are
conjugated to the future tense, those two words are typically used to express that
somebody knows/doesn’t know something in the present tense.
Also note that the ending of the conjugation will often change as well depending on
the different honorifics that you will learn in the next lesson.
Check out the table giving a breakdown of verbs in the past, present and future forms:
가다 가 갔다 간다 가겠다
오다 오 왔다 온다 오겠다
Adjectives
Present tense
You learned earlier that you must add ~ㄴ/는다 to a verb stem in order to conjugate it
to the present tense. In order to conjugate an adjective to the present tense you don’t
need to do anything! Just leave the adjective as it is, and it is conjugated in the present
tense.
Past tense
In order to conjugate adjectives to the past tense, you must follow the same rule as
when you conjugate verbs to the past tense. This rule, again, is:
You must add 았다 or 었다 to the stem of a word. 았다 is added to words
with the last vowel being ㅗ or ㅏ, and 었다 is added to words with the last
vowel being anything but ㅏ or ㅗ. For example:
This is a little bit complicated for you now, but although ~었다 is attached to 되 to
make “되었다”, this can be contracted. Teaching this is not the focus of this lesson, so
don’t worry about this for now. You will learn more about 되다 in future lessons. See
Lesson 9 or Lesson 14 for lessons nearby that discuss ‘되다.’
Future tense
Conjugating adjectives into the future tense is the same as conjugating verbs into
the future tense. All you need to do is add 겠다 to the stem of the adjective:
In general, not only is this basic form rare in conversation, but Korean people do not
use adjectives in the future as often as English speakers.
길다 길 길었다 길다 길겠다
낡다 낡 낡았다 낡다 낡겠다
Conjugating 있다 and 있다
있다 is one of the most complex and versatile words in Korean. Unfortunately, it is
also one of the most common words. It is often very difficult for learners of a
language to fully understand some of the most commonly used words in whatever
language they are studying. For example, and native English speaker might think that
the word “the” is one of the easiest words as it is used so frequently. However, try
explaining the meaning and purpose of “the” to a Korean person and you will quickly
discover that its usage is very complex.
나는 펜이 있다 = I have a pen
나는 차가 있다 = I have a car
나는 가방이 있다 = I have a bag
However, the usage of 있다 is much more complex than just these two meanings. 있
다 has many usages. In fact, there are times when 있다 is considered a verb. At this
point, your understanding of Korean is not strong enough to see example sentences of
있다 as a verb because you haven’t learned some critical grammatical principles yet.
What I want you to take from this is that 있다 can be a verb – and thus – is
conjugated as a verb sometimes. Therefore, although the example sentences above
with 있다 are properly conjugated, there are times when the proper conjugation of 있
다 in the “plain form” would be 있는다.
있다 is considered a verb when a person (or animal) is not only “at” a location, but
“staying” at a location or in a state for a period of time. The difference between the
adjective “있다” (to indicate something/someone is at a location) and the verb “있다”
(to indicate that someone stays at a location or in a state) is confusing.
Below are some complicated ways that 있다 can be seen as a verb. You absolutely do
not need to understand these now. I suggest that you worry about them when you
reach that particular lesson in your studies:
Wow, that is a lot of grammar. Understanding this will probably be the hardest step
you will need to make in learning Korean. I really mean that. If you can get through
this lesson, almost everything you will learn will relate back to the principles in this
lesson in one way or another. Don’t give up!
Unit 1: Lesson 6: Honorifics
Nouns: Verbs:
신발 = shoe 노력하다 = to try
남방 = shirt 앉다 = to sit
질문 = question 만지다 = to touch
문제 = question/problem 자다 = to sleep
나이 = age 보다 = to see
화장실 = bathroom, restroom 기다리다 = to wait
부장님 = boss 청소하다 = to clean
분위기 = the atmosphere of 약속하다 = to promise
something 차 = tea 듣다 = to hear
바지 = pants 들어보다 = to listen
교실 = classroom 그만하다 = to stop
급식 = food at school 운동하다 = to exercise
교감선생님 = vice principal Adjectives:
교장선생님 = principal 놀라다 = to be surprised
풀 = glue 빠르다 = to be fast
수도 = capital city 느리다 = to be slow
병 = bottle 착하다 = to be nice
병 = disease, sickness
Adverbs and Other Words:
생선 = fish
곧 = soon
야채 = vegetable
항상 = always
언덕 = hill
주 = week
선물 = present
아래 = bottom
기타 = guitar
종이 = paper
우유 = milk
손목 = wrist
시계 = clock
손목시계 = wristwatch
영화 = movie
The reason this is so hard for English speakers to understand is that we have nothing like
this in English. We can make some sentences sound polite by adding ‘please’ and ‘thank
you,’ but you can only use those words in a limited amount of sentences. For example, if
somebody asked you “where did you go yesterday?” You could respond:
I started learning Korean a few months before I moved to Korea. I was not studying very
hard or often, so my Korean was extremely basic. When I arrived at the airport in Seoul,
was driven directly to my school and introduced to my principal immediately. My
principal said “I am happy you are working at my school,” to which I replied:
Instead of being impressed that I at least knew some words in Korean, the look on his
face was as if somebody had just kidnapped his daughter.
Never, never underestimate the importance of honorific endings in Korean.
Keep in mind that all these conjugations with different honorific endings have exactly the
same meaning. You will learn how to conjugate using honorifics in the following ways:
The names of each form of speech might be different in every source, but I have chosen
the words above to describe each form. In addition, you learned the "Plain form" in the
previous lesson.
Before you start! Remember the rule you learned in Lesson 5: When adding something to a
word stem, if the last vowel in the stem is ㅏ or ㅗ, you must add 아 plus whatever you are
adding. If the last vowel is anything other than ㅏ or ㅗ, you must add 어 plus whatever
you are adding. If the syllable of the stem is 하, you add 하여 which can be shortened to
해.
Also, in the previous lesson, you learned that if a stem of a word ends in a vowel, “~
았/었다” gets merged to the actual stem itself when conjugating into the past tense.
In this lesson, two of the conjugations you will learn will require the addition of ~아/어.
When adding ~아/어 to the stem of a word, the same rule applies from previous lesson.
That is, if ~아/어 gets added to a stem that ends in a vowel, ~아/어 will be merged to the
stem itself. For example:
가다 + ~아/어 = 가 (가 + 아)
오다 + ~아/어 = 와 (오 + 아)
배우다 + ~아/어 = 배워 (배우 + 어)
끼다 + ~아/어 = 껴 (끼 + 어)
나서다 + ~아/어 = 나서 (나서 + 어)
켜다 + ~아/어 = 켜 (켜 + 어)
하다 + ~아/어 = 해 (하 + 여)
Conversely, if a stem ends in a consonant, ~아/어 is attached to the stem, but not merged
to it. For example:
먹다 + ~아/어 = 먹어 (먹 + 어)
앉다 + ~아/어 = 앉아 (앉 + 아)
There are many situations when you will have to add ~아/어 (or other vowels) to stems.
Conjugating is just one of these situations. Always keep this rule in mind, as you will see it
throughout this lesson, and throughout your studies.
Okay, let’s look at some conjugations.
Verbs
Present Tense
You learned in Lesson 5 how to conjugate verbs to the present tense by adding ㄴ/는다
to the stem of the word. To review:
There are three more conjugations in the present tense that you should be aware of.
1) Informal low respect
All you need to do is add ~어/아/여 to the stem of the verb:
Also notice in the examples above that “항상” (always) is placed in two different places
within a sentence. Adverbs are usually able to be placed wherever the speaker desires.
The usage and placement of adverbs is discussed in Lesson 8
This is done very similar to the conjugation you learned in Lesson 5 – that is, adding
ㄴ/는다 to the stem of the word. To conjugate using the Formal high respect honorific
ending, you add ~ㅂ니다/습니다 to the end of the word stem. If a word stem ends in a
vowel, you add ~ㅂ to the last syllable and 니다 follows. If a word stem ends in a
consonant, you add ~습니다 to the word stem.
Past Tense
You learned in Lesson 5 how to conjugate verbs to the past tense by adding
었다/았다/였다 to the stem of the word. To review:
먹다 = to eat (not conjugated)
나는 먹었다 = I ate (conjugated – past tense)
The three new conjugations should be very simple for you now:
Future Tense
You learned in Lesson 5 how to conjugate verbs to the future tense by adding 겠다 to the
stem of the word. To review:
The three new conjugations should be very simple for you now:
Try looking at all the verb conjugations you know together in one table. This table will
include the conjugation you learned in Lesson 5, which I call the “plain form” or “diary
form.”
Adjectives
Thankfully, adjectives are conjugated the exact same way as verbs when conjugating with
these three honorific endings. The major difference in conjugating adjectives and verbs is
when conjugating in the most basic form (which we did in Lesson 5). To conjugate
adjectives with ‘Informal low respect,’ Informal high respect’ and Formal high respect,’
follow the same rules as verbs:
*Irregular conjugation. You will learn about irregulars in the next lesson.
Irregulars
As with all languages, there are some irregular conjugations that you need to know.
Irregulars are applied to certain verbs or adjectives when adding something to the stem of
the word. Korean grammar is based on these “additions” that are added to stems. I
mentioned this in Lesson 5, but I want to reiterate it here.
There are hundreds of additions that you can add to the stem of a verb or adjective. Some
of these are conjugations and some of them are grammatical principles that have meaning
in a sentence. You have learned about some of these additions now. For example:
In future lessons, you will learn about many more of these additions. For example, some
of them are:
Notice that some of these additions start with a vowel, and some of them start with a
consonant. Most of the irregulars are applied when adding a vowel to a stem. The ㄹ
irregular that is introduced at the end of the lesson is the only irregular that applies when
adding a consonant to a stem.
Let’s look at one example before I introduce each irregular one by one. Let’s say we want
to conjugate the word “어렵다” into the past tense using the informal low respect form. The
following would happen:
Here, you can see that the actual stem of the word changed. This is referred to as the “ㅂ
irregular” because the same phenomenon happens with many (but not all) words whose
stem ends in “ㅂ”.
As I mentioned previously, most of these irregulars are applied when adding a vowel to a
stem. Although there are many additions that start with a vowel, the only ones that you
have learned about to this point are the conjugations taught in Lessons 5 and 6:
~아/어
~아/어요
~았/었어
~았/었어요
~았/었습니다
~았/었다
As such, this lesson will present the Korean irregulars and how they change as a result of
adding these conjugations. In later lessons when you learn about other additions, you can
apply what you learned in this lesson to those concepts. For now, let’s get started.
ㅅ Irregular
If the last letter of a word stem ends in ㅅ (for example: 짓다 = to build), the ㅅ gets
removed when adding a vowel. For example, when conjugating:
짓다 = to make/build
짓 + 어 = 지어
나는 집을 지어 = I build a house
짓 + 었어요 = 지었어요
저는 집을 지었어요 = I built a house
Notice that this only happens when adding a vowel. When conjugating to the plain form,
for example, you only add “~는다” to the stem and thus ㅅ does not get removed:
The reason this irregular is done is to avoid changing the sound of a word completely
after conjugating it.
Pronouncing 짓다 sounds like ‘jit-da.’
Pronouncing 지어 sounds like ‘ji-uh’
Pronouncing 짓어 sounds like ‘jis-suh’
The third one (which is incorrect) completely changes the sound of the word stem when a
vowel is added (from ‘jit’ to ‘jis.’ Whereas in the second one, the sound of the word stem
only changes from ‘jit’ to ‘ji,’ which is much smaller of a difference (especially
considering the ‘t’ in the pronunciation of 짓 is not aspirated - which makes it barely
audible). I know that is confusing, but if you can’t understand why it is done, that’s fine.
Just know that it must be done.
Some other examples of words that follow this irregular are (these words are too difficult
for you right now, but I'm just showing you):
낫다 = better (adjective) - You will learn more about this word in Lesson 19
잇다 = to continue (verb)
Note that when a word stem has ㅅ as the fourth consonant, this irregular does not apply.
For example, this does not apply to 없다, which you will learn about in the next lesson.
ㄷ irregular
If the last letter of a word stem ends in ㄷ (걷다 = to walk), the ㄷ gets changed to ㄹ
when adding a vowel. This is only done with verbs. For example:
걷다 = to walk
걷 + 어 = 걸어
저는 걸어요 = I walk
걷 + 었어요 = 걸었어요
저는 걸었어요 = I walked
Honestly, though, the whole 걷다/걷다/걸다 thing is probably the most confusing part of
this conjugation, and don’t worry too much about it. “Walk” is a word that is used much
more frequently than “tuck,” so it is not something that comes up a lot.
The reason this conjugation is done is simply because the sounds flows off your tongue
better. It is similar to pronouncing the word “butter” in English. When pronouncing
“butter” we don’t say “butt-tter,” we just say “bud-er.” Like the ㄷ irregular, it is simply
to avoid saying a hard consonant.
This is done to most stems ending in ㄷ, common words that this does not apply to (like
걷다 = to tuck) are:
받다 (to get/receive) = 저는 돈을 받았어요 = I received money
묻다 = 묻어요 (to bury) = 저는 저의 강아지를 묻었어요 = I buried my dog
닫다 = 닫아요 (to close) = 저는 문을 닫았어요 = I closed the door
Here is a table with the word “걷다 (to walk)” being conjugated using all the honorific
forms you have learned so far. The irregular conjugations are in bold. Notice that this only
occurs when ~아/어 (or one of its derivatives like ~았/었어요) is added to the verb stem.
걷다 = walk Past Present Future
ㅂ Irregular
If the last letter of a word stem ends in ㅂ (쉽다 = easy), the ㅂ changes to 우 when
adding a vowel. 우 then gets added to the next syllable in the conjugated word.
This is mostly done with adjectives. Many verbs end with ㅂ but this rule is rarely
applied to verbs (some of the few verbs where this rule applies are: 줍다 (to pick up),
눕다 (to lie down)). For example:
쉽다 = to be easy
쉽 + 어 = 쉬 + 우 + 어 = 쉬워
그것은 쉬워 = That easy
어렵다 = to be difficult
어렵 + 어요 = 어려 + 우 + 어요 = 어려워요
그것은 어려워요 = That was difficult
귀엽다 = cute
귀엽 + 어요 = 귀여 + 우 + 어요 = 귀여워요
그 여자는 귀여워요 That girl is cute
In the words “돕다” (to help) and “곱다” (an uncommon way to say “beautiful”) ㅂ
changes to 오 instead of 우. For example:
돕다 = to help
돕 + 았어요 = 도 + 오 + 았어요 = 도왔어요
저는 저의 어머니를 도왔어요 = I helped my mother
Note: The ㅂ in 돕다 and 곱다 changes to 오 only when ~아/어 (or any derivative like ~
았/었다 or ~아/어요) is added. When adding any other vowel, ㅂ changes to 우. As of
now, you haven’t learned when you would need to add a different vowel. For example, in
future lessons you will learn about adding ~ㄹ/을 to verbs. When this gets added to 돕다,
it changes to 도울. This isn’t immediately pressing to you now, but you should make a
mental note of it.
Because the ㅂ irregular is found in adjectives, you will be conjugating it not only at the
end of a sentence, but also in the middle of a sentence (before a noun). Remember the
difference between these two sentences.
In the first sentence, ‘big’ is an adjective that describes the noun (apple) at the end of the
sentence. In the second, ‘big’ describes the apple (as ‘a big apple’) and then “like” acts on
the noun. In Lesson 4, you learned how to describe a noun by placing an adjective with ~
ㄴ/은 before it. Adding ~ㄴ/은 to adjectives where the stem ends in “ㅂ” causes this
irregular to come into play.
When placing an adjective (who's stem ends in "ㅂ") before a noun to describe it, you
add ~ㄴ to the newly formed 우/오 syllable:
귀엽 + ㄴ = 귀여 + 우 + ㄴ = 귀여운
저는 귀여운 여자를 좋아해요 = I like cute girls
More examples:
쉽다 = easy
쉽 + ㄴ = 쉬 + 우 + ㄴ = 쉬운
저는 쉬운 일을 했어요 = I did easy work
부드럽다 = soft
부드럽 + ㄴ = 부드러 + 우 + ㄴ = 부드러운
나는 부드러운 손이 있어 = I have soft hands
춥다 = cold
춥 + ㄴ = 추 + 우 + ㄴ = 추운
저는 추운 날씨를 좋아해요 = I like cold weather
Note that in most irregulars, the word changes differently if the last vowel in the stem is
ㅗ OR ㅏ. However, in the ㅂ irregular, except for 돕다 and 곱다, all applicable words
are changed by adding 우. Therefore, even in words where the last vowel in the stem is
ㅏ (ex: 아름답다) or ㅗ (ex: 새롭다), 우 is added. For example:
아름답다 = beautiful:
아름답 + 어요 = 아름다 + 우 + 어요 = 아름다워요
그 여자는 아름다워요 = That girl is beautiful
새롭다 = new
새롭 + 어요 = 새로 + 우 + 어요 = 새로워요
그 학교는 새로워요 = That school is new
그것은 새로운 학교예요 = That (thing) is a new school
Probably the most confusing of all irregulars, mainly because it seems strange that ㅂ can
change to 우/오. The reason this happens is similar to the ㅅ irregular. As you know, when
pronouncing a syllable with the last letter ㅂ, you don’t really pronounce the ‘B’ sound.
But, if you add a vowel after ㅂ the sound of ‘B’ would be pronounced. The purpose of the
irregular is to eliminate the ‘B’ sound which isn’t actually in the word.
This is done to some words ending in ㅂ. Some common words where this does not apply:
Here is a table with the word “춥다 (cold)” being conjugated using all the honorific forms
you have learned so far. The irregular conjugations are in bold. Notice that this only
occurs when ~아/어 (or one of its derivatives like ~았/었어요) is added to the verb stem.
춥다 = cold Past Present Future
Informal low 추웠어 추워 춥겠어
ㅡ Irregular
If the final vowel in a stem is ㅡ (for example: 잠그다 = to lock), when adding ~아/어,
you can not determine whether you need to add ~어 or ~아 to the stem by looking at ㅡ.
Instead, you must look at the vowel in the second last syllable. For example, in the word
"잠그다", the second last syllable in the stem is "잠", and the vowel here is ㅏ. Therefore,
as usual, we add ~아 to 잠그.
For example:
잠그다 + ~아/어
= 잠그아
In cases like this where a word ends in "ㅡ" (that is, there is no final consonant after
"ㅡ") and is followed by ~아/어 (or any of its derivatives), the ~아/어~ the "ㅡ" is
eliminated and the addition of ~아/어~ merges to the stem. For example:
잠그다 = to lock
The last vowel in the stem is ㅡ. The vowel in the second last syllable is ㅏ, so we add 아.
For example: 잠그 + 아
Because there is no final consonant after “ㅡ”, ~아 replaces ㅡ.
잠그 + 아 = 잠가
This would be the same in the past tense as well, for example:
잠그 + 았어요 = 잠갔어요
저는 문을 잠갔어요 = I locked the door
바쁘다 = to be busy
The last vowel in stem is ㅡ. The vowel in the second last syllable is ㅏ, so we add 아.
For example: 바쁘 + 아
Because there is no final consonant after “ㅡ”, ~아 replaces ㅡ.
바쁘 + 아요 = 바빠요저는 바빠요 = I am busy
Some stems only have one syllable. For example, the stem of 크다 is just 크. In this case,
we know that we need to use the ㅡ irregular, but there is no previous syllable to draw on
to determine what should be added to the stem. In these cases, ~어 is added to the stem.
For example:
크다 = to be big
The last vowel in the stem is ㅡ. 크 is the only syllable in the stem, so we add 어
For example: 크 + 어
Because there is no final consonant after “ㅡ”, ~어 replaces ㅡ
크 + 어요 = 커요
그 집은 커요 = That house is big
This same rule applies when adding ~아/어 to words where, not only is the last vowel in
the stem ㅡ, but all the vowels in the stem are ㅡ. For example, in the word “슬프다,” not
only does the stem end in “ㅡ” but the vowel in the second last syllable is also “ㅡ”. In
this case as well, ~어 should merge to the stem. For example:
슬프다 = to be sad
The last vowel in the stem is ㅡ. The second last vowel is also ㅡ, so we add 어
For example: 슬프 + 어
Because there is no final consonant after “ㅡ”, ~어 replaces ㅡ
슬프 + 어요 = 슬퍼요
저는 아주 슬퍼요 = I am very sad
Sometimes the last vowel of a stem is ㅡ, but the stem ends in a consonant. In these cases,
all of the above rules still apply, but the addition of ~아/어 does not merge to the stem
(because it is blocked by the consonant). For example:
긁다 = to scratch
The last vowel in the stem is ㅡ. 긁 is the only syllable in the stem, so we add 어
For example: 긁 + 어
Because there is a final consonant after “ㅡ”, ~어 does not merge to the stem
긁 + 어요 = 긁어요
저는 머리를 긁었어요 = I scratched my head
Another example where we find a single-syllable word with “ㅡ” as the only vowel is
“듣다 (to hear)”
듣다 = to hear
Last vowel in stem is ㅡ. There is no syllable preceding 듣, so we must add 어.
듣 ends in a consonant, so 어 does not get added directly to the syllable. 듣 + 었
어요 = 듣었어요
But wait! Don’t forget the ㄷ irregular. In this example, both ㅡ and ㄷ irregulars are
used:
듣 + 었다 = 들었다
저는 쥐를 들었어요 = I heard a mouse
An irregular to this already irregular rule is "만들다 (to make)." Even though the second
last syllable in the stem has the vowel "ㅏ", ~어~ is added instead of ~아~. For example:
만들다 + ~아/어요
= 만들어요
Here is a table with the word “잠그다 (to lock – which is a verb)” being conjugated using
all the honorific forms you have learned so far. The irregular conjugations are in bold.
Notice that this only occurs when ~아/어 (or one of its derivatives like ~았/었어요) is
added to the verb stem.
잠그다 = lock Past Present Future
Finally, here is a table with the word “만들다 (to make – which is a verb)” being
conjugated using all the honorific forms you have learned so far.
만들다 = to make Past Present Future
You will learn how 만든다 and 만듭니다 are formed later in the lesson when you learn
about the ㄹ irregular.
르 Irregular
If the final syllable in a stem is 르 (마르다), it is conjugated differently when adding ~
아/어. This irregular only applies when adding ~아/어(or any of its derivatives) to a
stem and not when adding any other grammatical principles that starts with a vowel or
consonant. Up until now, you haven't learned about any of these other grammatical
principles, that can start with anything other than ~아/어~, so don't worry about this
distinction too much.
When adding ~아/어 to these words, an additional ㄹ is created and placed in the syllable
preceding 르 as the last consonant. The 르 also gets changed to either 러 or 라 (depending
on if you are adding 어 or 아). This is done to both verbs and adjectives (the only
exception is 따르다 = to follow/to pour). For example:
다르다 = different
다르 + 아요 = 다 + ㄹ + 라요 = 달라요
그것은 달라요 = That thing is different
빠르다 = to be fast
빠르 + 아요 = 빠 + ㄹ + 라요 = 빨라요
그 남자는 빨라요 = That man is fast
Here is a table with the word “고르다 (to choose – which is a verb)” being conjugated
using all the honorific forms you have learned so far. The irregular conjugations are in
bold. Notice that this only occurs when ~아/어 (or one of its derivatives like ~았/었어요)
is added to the verb stem.
고르다 = choose Past Present Future
And here is a table with the word “빠르다 (fast/quick – which is an adjective)” being
conjugated using all the honorific forms you have learned so far. The irregular
conjugations are in bold. Notice that this only occurs when ~아/어 (or one of its
derivatives like ~았/었어요) is added to the verb stem.
빠르다 = fast Past Present Future
ㄹ Irregular
As you know, there are times when you must choose between two things to add to a stem.
For example:
~아/어 means you must choose between adding ~아 or ~어
~ㄴ/은 means you must choose between adding ~ㄴ or ~은
~ㅂ/습 means you must choose between adding ~ㅂ or ~습
~ㄹ/을 means you must choose between adding ~ㄹ or ~을
As you know, you must choose the correct addition based on the stem.
If the final letter of a stem is ㄹ AND you add any of the following:
~ㄴ/은
~ㄴ/는
~ㅂ/습
~ㄹ/을
The first option (~ㄴ/ ~ㅂ / ~ㄹ ) should be used. In addition, the ㄹ is removed from the
stem and ~ㄴ / ~ㅂ / ~ㄹ is add directly to the stem. Let's look at each one individually.
크다 = 큰 남자
작다 = 작은 남자
When adding ~ㄴ/은 to a stem ending in ㄹ, the ㄹ is removed and ㄴ is added to the stem:
길다 = long
길 + ㄴ = 긴
저는 긴 거리를 건넜어요 = I crossed the long street
멀다 = far away
멀 + ㄴ = 먼
저는 먼 병원에 갔어요 = I went to a far away hospital (a hospital that is far away)
There will be times when you have to add ~ㄴ/은 to verbs stems as well, but you haven't
learned about this yet. I introduce this concept in Lesson 26, and then talk about the
irregular being applied in Lesson 28. I don't want you to think about this too much until
those lessons, but just so you know, the concept is the same as adding ~ㄴ/은 to an
adjective. For example:
열다 = to open
열 + ㄴ = 연
Although you haven't learned about adding ~ㄴ/은 to stems, you have learned about
adding ~ㄴ/는다 to verb stems. Normally, you add ~ㄴ다 to the stem of a verb ending in a
vowel, and ~는다 to the stem of a verb ending in a consonant. For example:
나는 집에 간다 = I go home
나는 밥을 먹는다 = I eat rice
But when adding ~ㄴ/는다 to a verb stem that ends in ㄹ, you must remove ㄹ and add ~
ㄴ다 to the verb stem:
Verbs:
저는 집에 갑니다 = I go home
저는 밥을 먹습니다 = I eat rice
Adjectives:
그 여자는 예쁩니다 = That girl is pretty
이 방은 넓습니다 = This room is big/wide
But when adding ~ㅂ니다 to the stem of a word that ends in ㄹ, you must remove ㄹ and
add ~ㅂ directly to the stem. For example:
Verbs:
저는 문을 엽니다 = I open the door
저는 케이크를 만듭니다 = I make a cake
Adjectives:
그 병원은 멉니다 = That hospital is far
그 여자의 머리카락은 깁니다 = That girls hair is long
머리 can mean ‘head’ or ‘hair’ depending on the context. If you want to specifically
mention your hair, you can say “머리카락” always means the hair on one’s head. 머리
or 머리카락 does not refer to the hair on an animal, or the body hair of a human. This
hair is referred to as “털” and extends to most of the hair that can be found on animals
(fur, the wool on a sheep, etc)
Here is a table with the word “열다 (to open – which is a verb)” being conjugated using
all the honorific forms you have learned so far. The irregular conjugations are in bold.
Notice that this only occurs when ~ㄴ or ~ㅂ is added to the verb stem.
열다 = open Past Present Future
And here is a table with the word "길다 (long - which is an adjective)" being conjugated
using all the honorific forms you have learned so far. Notice that this only occurs when ~ㄴ
or ~ㅂ is added to the verb stem (it would happen when ~ㄴ is added, but you don't add ~
ㄴ/는 to an adjective when you conjugate it like this. There are times, however, when this
would happen, but you haven't even gotten close to learning about them yet. For example,
in Lesson 76, we talk about the addition of ~ㄴ/는데 to clauses. This would make 길다
turn into 긴데. Please don't even think about looking ahead until Lesson 76 until you've
finished with this lesson, and the 69 lessons in between.
길다 = long Past Present Future
I don’t want to confuse you too much more because I am sure you are already really
confused. Just the amount of content on this page alone is enough to make somebody cry.
That being said, I think it is a very good exercise to try to compare how the words 듣다 and
들다 differ in their conjugations. Don’t worry about the meaning of 들다 yet (it is a very
complex word that has many meanings), but just assume it is a verb in this case. For now,
let’s just focus on how they are conjugated.
Notice that when conjugating 듣다, you need to consider the following irregular patterns:
The following table shows how 듣다 should be conjugated across the honorifics and
tenses you have learned so far:
듣다 = to hear Past Present Future
Notice when conjugating 들다, you need to consider the following irregular patterns:
The following table shows how 들다 should be conjugated across the honorifics and
tenses you have learned so far:
들다 Past Present Future
I feel that comparing these two is a very good exercise because you can see that
sometimes, because of the irregular conjugations, 듣다 might look exactly like 들다. For
example, in all of the past tense conjugations, there is no way to distinguish between the
two based on sound, and the only way to distinguish them is by context in a sentence.
There is no easy way around memorizing stuff like this. The only words of encouragement
I can give you is that – as you become more and more familiar with the language, and as
you expose yourself to it more and more, it does become second nature. I know you can’t
believe that now, but it does.
ㄹ Irregular: Adding ~ㄹ/을 to words
You have yet to learn any situation where you would need to add ~ㄹ/을 to a stem, so don’t
worry about this too much right now. I will show you the examples, but you won’t be able
to understand them. Just try to see how the irregular works within these examples, and I
will re-present these again when you learn how to deal with adding ~ㄹ/을.
Normally (just like with other similar additions), you would add ~ㄹ to the stem of a
word ending in a vowel, and ~을 to the stem of a word ending in a consonant. For
example:
작다 + ~ㄹ/을 = 작을
크다 + ~ㄹ/을 = 클
However, when you add ~ㄹ/을 to a stem of a word that ends in ㄹ, the ㄹ is dropped
and ㄹ is attached directly to the stem. In effect, you removed something and replace it
with exactly the same thing. For example:
갈다 + ㄹ/을 = 갈
빨다 + ㄹ/을 = 빨
Again, that is just for your reference. I will teach you more about this irregular when I
teach you about the specific grammar within it in Lesson 9. You will also see this
irregular applied again in Lesson 28.
I will show you the examples of how this works, but you won’t be able to understand
them. Just try to see how the irregular works within these examples, and I will re-present
these again when you learn how to deal with adding a solid ~ㄴ and ~ㅅ.
When you add a solid ~ㄴ or ~ㅅ to a stem of a word that ends in ㄹ, you must drop the
ㄹ from the stem, and add the solid ~ㄴ or ~ㅅ after the stem:
For example:
열다 + ~나(요) = 여나요
열다 + ~니 = 여니
열다 + ~는 = 여는
열다 + ~냐 = 여냐
열다 + ~세요 = 여세요
Again, that is just for your reference. I will teach you more about those irregulars when I
teach you about the specific grammar within them. Specifically, you will learn about
adding ~니 and ~나 to stems in Lesson 21; you will learn about ~는 in Lessons 26, 27 and
28; and will learn about~세요 in Lesson 40.
As of now, you have not yet learned about adding ~는 or ~ㅅ to a stem, so don’t worry
about this too much now. I will show you the examples, but you won’t be able to
understand them. Just try to see how the irregular works within these examples, and I will
re-present these again when you learn how to deal with adding ~는 and ~ㅅ.
Make sure that you realize that you have not learned any grammatical principle where "~
는" is added. The addition of "~는" is not the diary form conjugation that you learned in
Lesson 5. That conjugation is ~ㄴ/는다 - where, depending on the stem of the verb, you
might need add ~ㄴ다 or ~는다. The "~는" addition is not the same, and will be talked
about in Lessons 26, 27 and 28, but try not to worry about it now.
Just to make my point clear - the diary form present tense conjugation of "열다" is
"연다" (based on the information earlier). It is not 여는다.
어렵은
Because of this, we now have the final consonant “ㅂ” followed by a vowel, which
causes the ㅂ irregular to be applied. The correct conjugation of 어렵다 + ~ㄴ/은 is
therefore “어려운.”
Below is a table that shows how irregular adjectives can change because of adding ~
ㄴ/은:
Irregular Example Word Does this apply? Application
Check out our Irregular Guide (which is included next) if you are confused (I’m sure you
are!). Everybody is confused when they learn these irregulars. Eventually you will reach a
point where all of these will come natural to you. Whenever you learn a new word where
the stem ends in ㅅ/ㄹ/ㅂ/ㄷ/르/ㅡ just make a mental note about how you should
conjugate that word in the futureI don’t even have to think about these irregulars anymore
because they just flow out naturally. If you can’t memorize them all right now, just try to
understand them, which will allow you to recognize them later. Eventually, you will
memorize them simply from using and hearing them so much.
Korean Adverbs
To this point, you have studied Korean verbs and adjectives in great depth, but you have
yet to learn much about Korean adverbs. First of all, what is an adverb? Adverbs are words
in sentences that tell you when, where, or to what degree something is being done.
In this lesson, you will learn how to use adverbs in Korean sentences. Let's get started!
When and Where
Anytime you put a word in a sentence that indicates when or where something is taking
place, you must add the particle 에 to the end of that word. Keep in mind, however, that
에 is not the only particle that can go at the end of words of position or time. There are
other particles that can go at the end of these words to indicate from when/where
something occurred, until when/where, etc. For now, though, let’s just talk about 에.
This is very important. Even though all places (park, house, hospital, school, office, room,
kitchen, etc) are also nouns, when they are being talked about as a place, the particle 에
must be attached to them. Notice the difference between the following two sentences:
In the first sentence, “hospital” is the thing in which you are building – so it is an object,
which requires you to use the 을/를 particle.
In the second sentence, the hospital is the place in which you went to – so it is a place,
which requires it to have the 에 particle.
However, if you wanted to say where you built that hospital, you could say this:
In addition to this, any word that indicates when something is taking place, needs have
the Korean particle 에 attached to it. For example:
The best part about Korean adverbs is that they can essentially be placed at any place in
the sentence. The only place they cannot be placed is at the end of the sentence - because a
sentence must always end in an adjective or verb. They could even be placed at the
beginning of a sentence:
When adding these types of adverbs to sentences, no particle needs to be attached. While
other adverbs are generally free to be placed anywhere in a sentence, adverbs like this that
indicate a degree to which something is done are typically placed immediately before the
verb. For example:
Also, many of these words are just transferred from their adjective forms to create an
adverb. This is done in English as well, for example:
Quick Quickly
Easy Easily
Quiet Quietly
A lot of adverbs in Korean are simply made by adding ‘게’ to the stem of an adjective:
Adjective Adverb
쉽다 = easy 쉽게 = easily
Adjectives that end in 하다 are sometimes changed into adverbs by changing 하다 to 히.
With most 하다 adjectives you can either add 게 to the stem or 히 with no difference in
meaning. The only thing I can suggest is try to listen to which one is said in a specific
situation, because even Korean people don’t know the answer to the question “what is the
difference between 조용하게 and 조용히”:
Adjective Adverb
조용하다 = quiet 조용하게/조용히 = quietly
Finally, some adjectives are changed into adverbs in a different way. When this happens,
they are usually very similar to their original adjective form:
Adjective Adverb
*많다 and 많이 essentially have the same meaning aside from the fact that one is an
adverb and one is an adjective. With most words, the difference between the adjective
and adverb form is very clear, but with 많이/많다, the meaning is similar. For example:
Now that you know ALL that, using adverbs in sentences is easy as pie!:
You can, of course, use more than one adverbs in a sentence. To look at the list I showed
you earlier:
Though you can do that, using two adverbs that indicate the ‘degree of something’ is
generally not done in Korean. For example, this would sound awkward: 저는 쉽게 빨
리 거리를 건넜어요 = I easily quickly crossed the street (It’s also awkward in
English!)
Negative Sentences
There are two ways you can make a sentence negative:
1. By adding 안, which acts as an adverb in the sentence. 안 is typically placed
immediately before the final verb or adjective. For example:
2. By adding ~지 않다 to the stem of the final verb or adjective. 않다 then becomes the
verb or adjective in that sentence and must be conjugated accordingly. For example:
Their respective meanings are identical. It is up to the speaker to decide which one will be
used. There are times when it will be more natural to use “안” and there will be times
when it will be more natural to use “~지 않다.” At this point, you can consider them the
same. Throughout your studies you will constantly be exposed to 안 and ~지 않다, and
through this exposure you can gradually develop a preference for which one should be
used and in which circumstance.
I like to share my observations that I have made through my experiences with the Korean
language. I think this can be helpful to learners as they struggle to understand when to use
some grammatical principles over others. There are a few things I would like to talk about
regarding these negative sentences.
---------------------------------------------
As you know, most verbs ending in ~하다 can be turned into a noun-form of that verb by
removing ~하다. For example.
공부하다 = to study
공부 = the noun form of “study”
여행하다 = to travel
여행 = a trip
When indicating that one “does not do” a ~하다 verb, it is common to separate ~하다
from the noun and place “안” in between them. For example:
저는 공부를 안 했어요 = I didn’t study
Instead of:
저는 안 공부했어요
It would also be appropriate to use the ~지 않다 form with these words. However, in
these cases, it doesn’t matter if the noun is separated from ~하다 or not. For example.
Many adjectives end in ~하다. It is unnatural to remove the ~하다 in these words and
place “안” between them. You can’t separate an adjective and “act” on it with ~하다
because they are adjectives. For example, the following would be incorrect:
However, you could use ~지 않다 on a -하다 adjective or place “안” before the verb
without separating it. For example:
---------------------------------------------
I have had people ask me about the word order of sentences using an adverb and the
negative adverb “안”. One learner asked me if this sentence would be okay:
저는 빨리 안 공부했어요
While it might be understood, this sentence sounds very awkward in Korean. The reason
is probably due to the fact that there are two adverbs being used. In this sentence, both “빨
리” and “안” act as adverbs that indicate the degree to which the studying was done. As I
mentioned earlier, this usually isn’t done in Korean. Instead, if you wanted to express that
meaning, you can use the ~지않다 negative addition instead. By doing this, you
effectively remove one of the adverbs and are left with:
Even still, though. This sentence could still be a little awkward in Korean – because when
would you ever say “I didn’t study quickly”? In most cases, it would be more natural to
simply use an adverb that has the opposite meaning. For example, this sentence:
나는 선생님이다 = I am a teacher
나는 대학생이다 = I am a university student
However, when using 아니다, the particle ~이/가 is attached to the noun, and 아니다 is
used as a separate word:
나는 선생님이 아니다 = I am not a teacher
나는 대학생이 아니다 = I am not a university student
Below are some examples, with possible conjugations of 아니다. You have learned how to
conjugate verbs and adjectives, but you still haven't learned how to conjugate 이다 and 아
니다. You will learn this in the next lesson.
없다 can have the meanings of “to not have” or “to not be in/at a location/for there to be
none of.” For example:
To not have:
저는 돈이 없어요 = I don’t have money
저는 시간이 없어요 = I don’t have time
우리는 차가 없어요 = We don't have a car
To not be in a location:
저의 친구는 지금 한국에 없어요 = My friend is not in Korea now
In Lesson 3, you learned how 좋다 and 좋아하다 are different. I explained that 좋다 is
an adjective (meaning "to be good"), and thus cannot act on an object. For example:
The adjective form of 싫어하다 is 싫다. However, contrary to what you probably expect,
싫다 is not used to mean "to not be good." In order to indicate that something is "not good"
(i.e. "bad"), the adjective 나쁘다 is commonly used. Instead, 싫다 is often used to indicate
that one dislikes something (just like 싫어하다). For example:
Mini-Test
a) 저는 공원를 갔어요
b) 저는 펜을 있어요
c) 나는 친구가 만났어
d) 나는 병원 옆에 있어
2) Choose the adjective that is being used correctly:
a) 저는 문을 열었어요
b) 저는 밥을 먹았어요
c) 저는 학교에 간았어요
d) 저는 친구를 만났요
a) 나는 학교에 갔어요
b) 나는 학교에 가요
c) 저는 학교에 갔어요
d) 저는 학교에 가겠어
a) 저는 집을 짓었어요
b) 그 일이 어렵었어요
c) 저는 어제 너무 바빴어요
d) 저의 어머니는 예쁜다
a) 저는 빨리 조용하게 달렸어요
b) 나는 학교에 간았어요
c) 나는 의사를 아니다
d) 나는 돈이 없어