Korean Language Basics

Categories: Off-topic

Introduction

I’m learning Korean at the moment, and wanted to share some of the things I have learned so far. In particular, most tutorials start with the basics and build up step by step - and that’s great, but I personally like to have at least an overview (the big picture) before diving into the details. This article gives those basics in a 20-minute read. This is not intended to be a Korean language tutorial or course, just an overview - and one from an amateur. Please skim this as an intro, then go use a proper course!

Korean is a great language to learn. The Korean culture is interesting, and (for someone from a European culture) is a gateway to other east asian cultures and languages. It also seems to me to be (suprisingly) a relatively easy language for an English speaker; despite being completely unrelated to western languages it still has many familiar grammatical constructs: an alphabet, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, possessives, etc.

One slightly tricky part of Korean is that it has lots of short words; changing a single letter in any word almost always produces a valid word with a different meaning (ie the language has low redundancy). It also tends to reuse words for very different meanings in different contexts. This does make the language very compact, but the brain needs to work harder sometimes to figure out which meaning applies. Korean is probably a good language for puns..

Another unfortunate aspect is the concept of “politeness levels” which affects many parts of the language and adds a lot of unnecessary (IMO) complexity. But who’s perfect?

Contents

The Alphabet

Despite first appearances, Korean is written in a way not much different from English; it use an alphabet of about the same size, has vowels and consonants, has syllables, and is reasonably phonetic (much better than English!).

Of course, the alphabet does use different characters and it is necessary to learn them, but they are elegantly simple shapes. Learning the alphabet and the corresponding sound for each letter takes a week or two, no more. To be precise, the alphabet consists of 19 consonants, 14 vowels, and 7 dipthong-vowels for a total of 40 symbols - but many are variants of a base form.

Because Korean is mostly phonetic (each letter has a consistent sound), it is generally possible to correctly pronounce a word just from seeing its written form. It also means that having heard a word, you have a good chance of guessing how it is written. There are exceptions, but far fewer than in English. Some Korean letters have a sound that directly corresponds with an English letter, for example ㄴ is very similar to the English letter n and ㅗ is pronounced very much like a standalone o (eg “o’clock”). Some correspond to a sound that in English we write with more than one letter, eg ㅣ is pronounced exactly like ee and ㅛ sounds very much like “yo” (as in “yo, man!”). A few letters are trickier, with sounds that don’t quite match anything in English; ㅂ is somewhere between a p and a b while ㄷ is somewhere between a t and a d. In short, learning correct pronunciation is not trivial, but also not truly hard - certainly no harder than learning to speak Spanish with an acceptable accent.

Letters do sometimes change their sound depending upon context.

Like European languages, letters are grouped into syllables. However what is special about Korean is that the letters in each syllable are joined together into a “syllable block”, sometimes by joining letters horizontally and sometimes by stacking letters on top of each other vertically. The result looks initially something like Chinese or Japanese but is quite different; with only a little practice it is easy to join letters or to pick apart a block into its separate letters.

Each syllable consists of either

  • (consonant, vowel) – about 50% of the time
  • (consonant, vowel, consonant) – about 40% of the time, or
  • (consonant, vowel, consonant, consonant) – about 10% of the time

ie every syllable contains exactly one vowel.

Every vowel is either “horizontal” (tall and thin) or “vertical” (short and wide). When horizontal then it is written (horizontally) next to the initial consonant and the following consonants (if any) are written on the next row. When vertical then it is written (vertically) below the initial consonant (ie on row 2) and the following consonants (if any) are written on yet another row. The maximum “width” of a syllable is therefore 2 characters, and the maximum height is 3 rows. This also means that the letters in a syllable are read left-to-right and top-to-bottom. A syllable that “wants to” begin with a vowel-sound uses the consonant ㅇ as its first letter (which is silent when at the start of a syllable) and thus syllables always have at least 2 characters. These (relatively common) leading circles give Korean writing a distinctive appearance (compared to Japanese or Chinese for example).

The consonant(s) following a vowel (if any) are called a “batchim” - ie any syllable except those of form (consonant, vowel) has a “batchim”. These have some effects on pronunciation and verb conjugation; details are discussed later.

When hand-writing Korean, choosing the right size for letters is a little tricky; a letter within a 2-row syllable should be half as high as when written in a 1-row syllable.

Text is laid out just as in English - syllables are written left to right within a line, lines are top to bottom within a page, and pages are front to back within a document. This isn’t true for Japanese!

There are no uppercase or lowercase versions of letters. However a few letters have different appearance in different “fonts”. In particular, the letters ㅈㅅㅎ (roughly corresponding to “tsh”, “s”, and “h”) have multiple forms (all equivalent).

A few letters look like a “doubled” form of a simpler letter (ㅃㅉㄸㄲㅆ). These are still treated as a single letter, and take up the same amount of space (each part is written half as large).

Some pairs of vowels combine to form what is effectively one letter - ie in those rules about (consonant, vowel, consonant) etc., the vowel can be a dipthong-vowel-pair. These always consist of one vertical and one horizontal vowel, so don’t change the rules regarding layout of syllable blocks - they just occupy both possible positions. In most cases the sound of the resulting combination is like quickly pronouncing both parts - though some combinations have their own distinct sound. There are 7 such possible combinations.

Unlike some asian languages, Korean is not “tonal”, ie the meaning of a letter or word does not change depending on pitch or accent.

Numbers are written using European symbols (also known as “arabic numerals”..). Like English, numbers can also be written as words (equivalent to “ten”, “twenty-three” etc in English).

Fortunately, when typing Korean on a keyboard, the rules for combining letters into syllables are consistent enough that the computer will automatically build the correct blocks. And the fact that there are only 33 different characters (ignoring the dipthongs) means that keyboards are similar to English ones; English actually needs 26 upper-case and 26 lower-case letters so the Korean alphabet is smaller. A Korean keyboard puts the 26 most commonly used letters on the “main” layout, just like English, with the less-used letters (particularly double-consonants) accessed via the shift key. Dipthongs are formed by typing their components out as separate letters and letting the computer figure out that they need to be combined. Cleverly, the consonants are on the left side of the keyboard while the vowels are on the right, making typing most commonly left-right-left-right-left-right.

Because there isn’t a 1:1 correspondence between the sounds of letters in Korean and English, it is best to learn the Korean alphabet early and then to read and write Korean using its native alphabet rather than trying to use English equivalents (“romanized korean spelling”). You’ll need to learn the Korean alphabet anyway if you ever want to read street-signs or restaurant menus and, because English is so un-phonetic, any Korean word could be written in a dozen different ways in English while a written english-ified spelling can be pronounced a dozen different ways with only one of them being correct. There are “official phonetic mappings” from Korean sounds to the latin alphabet, but they are non-trivial to learn and you’ll seldom see these in Korea. And yes, this article does generally give pronunciation “approximations” in the English alphabet - but that’s only because this is for absolute beginners. Just learn the alphabet and its corresponding sounds!

Punctuation

Just like western languages, spaces are used to separate words (although they can be a little hard to spot until you are familiar with the letters). In addition, the western full-stop, question-mark and exclamation mark are used - and in the same way.

As noted above, Korean does not have upper/lowercase letters.

TODO: What about quote-marks, commas, etc ??

Nouns

Nouns (the names of concrete things and abstract concepts) work exactly as in English. Like English, and unlike the majority of European languages, nouns do not have “genders”.

The plural form of any noun can be formed just by appending a single syllable (들 - roughly pronounced “durl”). There are (as far as I know) no exceptions - much nicer than in English where adding “s” or “es” is often but not always right. However the plural suffix is typically omitted in situations where it is implied by context.

Noun Markers and Cases

In a sentence such as “I give the ball to her” (or “I give her the ball”), there are three nouns with distinct roles:

  • “I” is the actor performing the verb (give)
  • “the ball” is the primary object the verb is acting on
  • “her” is the target of the verb

Many European languages make the role of each element in a sentence clear by allocating a “case” to each part (typically called nominative, accusative, and dative); the “nominative” case is allocated to the actor, the “accusative” is allocated to the primary target of the verb and the “dative” is allocated to the (secondary) target of the verb. These cases then affect the endings of various words (pronouns, articles, adjectives) in sometimes complex ways.

English doesn’t use cases quite as extensively/consistently as some other European languages, but we can see in that example sentence above the use of “I” and “her”. The words “I/he/she” are used for nominative while “me/him/her” are used for other cases. English does not generally modify other words such as “the ball”; instead the roles of the elements in a sentence must be deduced from word order and context.

Korean distinguishes the roles of things in a sentence in a different and very elegant way; there is a “topic marker syllable”, a “subject marker syllable” and an “object marker syllable” which are simply appended to the relevant nouns. Actually, there are two variants of each marker, depending on whether the word they are appended to ends in a vowel or not (just to make pronunciation flow better). The use of these markers removes much of the complexity that occurs in some languages which instead use cases and genders - pronouns, articles, and adjectives don’t need to “agree” with the role/case they have in the sentence.

These markers are:

  • Topic: 은 / 는
  • Subject: 이 / 가
  • Object: 을 / 를

There are also time and location markers.

There is some overlap between topic and subject markers; they both indicate who is doing an action (the subject of a verb). Choosing which one to use where is a slightly tricky part of learning Korean.

The topic marker indicates the subject in a neutral way - the emphasis is on the object (if any). It also sets the “default topic” for further conversation. Note that a sentence has at most one topic-marker. The subject marker places more emphasis on the subject part of the sentence, ie makes the subject the “point of focus”. Examples of places where the subject marker should be used (instead of the topic) include:

  • when the exact identity of the subject is being clarified: “Who is dancing? Sam (subject) is dancing.”
  • when mentioning something “in passing” which is not “the ongoing topic of the conversation”
  • when a sentence has more than one subject: “The band played and the audience danced”.

Another way to think about the difference between topic-marker and subject-marker is that every verb requires a subject and there are two ways to specify it: via an explicit subject-marker, or by letting it default to the “current topic”. The (noun + topic-marker) part of a sentence can then be thought of as a completely different sentence - something that sets the default subject to be used later. This explains:

  • why the subject-marker emphasises the subject: it’s overriding the default topic - ie there is something important about this subject
  • why a sentence using a topic marker isn’t emphasising the subject: it can be seen as first setting the default subject, and then letting the next verb use that default.
  • why a subject-marker can occur multiple times in a sentence: a subject is needed for each verb

Topic-markers always occur at the start of a sentence, and can be translated as “As for (topic), ….” or “Regarding (topic), …” ; any following verb without a subject is assumed to be related to that topic. English does something similar; eg in the phrase “Regarding my car, it is very old and it is not reliable. Despite that I like driving it.” the word “it” refers to the default topic (“my car”). Korean simply omits the word “it”.

In English, this might look something like:

I(+topicmarker) went to the beach. Swam. Ate lunch. Met some friends. My friend Sam (+topicmarker) got sunburn. Went home early.

which means

I went to the beach. I swam. I ate lunch. I met some friends. My friend Sam got sunburn. Sam went home early.

The object marker is used in sentences where the verb performs an action on something, eg “throw” (“I throw the ball”) or “see” (“I see the cat”). It indicates which noun is the thing the verb is acting on (ball, cat).

So far, this discussion has been considering markers only in combination with action verbs, ie verbs which do something (to go, to eat, to see, etc) and therefore have something doing them (subject) and (usually) something they act on (object). Korean has another category of verbs called “descriptive verbs” which describe things or associated properties with things eg “to be large” or “to be hot” or “to be on (something)”; these don’t have an object as they don’t act on anything. However they can have multiple subjects - eg in the sentence “The cat is on the desk” there are effectively two subjects: the cat and the desk. This is dealt with by using the topic-marker for one noun, and the subject-marker for the other. To continue our earlier example, the sentence “The cat is on the desk” could be expressed as either “Regarding the cat (topic), it is on the desk (subject)” or “Regarding the desk (topic), there is a cat (subject) on it”. Whichever noun is the “ongoing topic of conversation” should be the one with the topic marker. Both action and descriptive verbs are discussed in more detail later.

The 는 (“nurn”) suffix has (at least) one other unrelated use. See:

  • adjectives as noun modifiers (“the hungry cat ..” -> “hungry + 는 (modifier marker) + cat + 는 (topic marker) …”)

Pronouns

Just like English, there are words for “I/you/he/she”.

However Korean has the concept of “politeness levels” or “formality levels” which are very important. Some pronouns therefore have two forms, one being more “humble” with respect to the listener than the other. The concept of “politeness levels” is discussed further later.

The available words are:

  • I: 저 (humble) or 나
  • we: 저희 (humble) or 우리
  • you (singular): 그쪽, 당신 (humble but very seldom used; see below) or 너 (casual)
  • you (plural): 여러분 (can also be used as a formal singular form)
  • he: 그 - literally “that” - see section on this and that
  • she: 그녀 - literally “that woman”
  • they: 그들 - literally “that plural”

However Korean commonly omits pronouns whenever they can be deduced from context, eg “do you like it?” can drop the “you” and “it” and just become “like?”.

The use of “you” is tricky when combined with Korean’s concept of politeness/formality. When addressing someone directly, any question implicitly includes “you”; “like the food?” obviously means “do you like the food?”. Therefore in Korean the “you” is usually just omitted in questions. In other cases, it is often replaced by something else - for example “you are correct” becomes “correct”, “that is correct”, “(addressee-personal-name) ssi is correct”, or “(title) nim is correct”. The “ssi” (씨) is something like “Mr/Mrs” (but not gender-specific) and the personal-name is used at least partly because there are so few distinct family-names in Korean. The “nim” is something like “honorable”. See the section on politeness. Note however that “ssi” is written as a separate word (and any marker is then attached to it, and not the name) while “nim” is appended to the title (part of the word).

Even when talking informally, the informal you-form (너) is appropriate only between close friends or relatives of similar age, or adults to children.

The word 당신 (“dangsheen”) is sometimes used in impersonal contexts such as speeches or advertising. However addressing someone directly using this can be considered impolite; name-ssi or title-nim should be used. Couples sometimes use this word in the sense of “darling” or “honey”.

The word 그쪽 (“kurchok”) may be used to address someone when you just don’t have any other option, eg don’t know their name or title. But an alternative should be found as soon as possible.

The terms he/she are actually fairly rarely used, and can be impolite unless referring to someone whose identity you really don’t know. In general it is better to initially use the person’s name plus the topic-marker, then the subject can “default” to that person - ie it isn’t necessary to repeat their name over and over. In English, he/she are used to refer to “that person we are talking about” - and Korean does this by using the “topic marker” to make that person explicit and then simply omitting the subject in following sentences - ie letting those sentences default to the “current topic”.

The term “it” isn’t really used either. As with he/she above, “it” refers to “the thing we are talking about” and the topic-marker/default-subject approach replaces this. There are words for “this” or “that” (see later).

Korean does not have separate words for different pronoun roles/cases (I/me, he/him, she/her, they/them, etc). Instead one of the “marker syllables” described above is appended to any pronoun depending on its role in a sentence. Sentences such as “I like ..” or “I go” will start with the pronoun for “I” (using appropriate politeness level) followed by the “subject marker” because in this case “I” is the subject of the sentence. A sentence such as “.. with me” or “.. to me” will contain the pronoun for “I” followed by the “object marker”.

One special note about the pronoun “I” when used with the subject-marker: it changes form and is not 저가 but 제가.

Articles (“A” and “The”)

English uses “the” or “a” before nouns to specify whether we are talking about a specific item, or any item of that type, as does German/French/Italian/Spanish. However there are many languages which don’t use this approach - and Korean is one of them.

There are words for “this” and “that” if you need to specify something within eyesight. And you can use the word “that” if you really want to make clear that you are talking about a specific object (presumably from an earlier part of the conversation). The words “it” and “that” are identical..

Otherwise the item in question is deduced from context, eg “I bought book about Korea. I lost book.” where the last sentence implicitly refers to that specific book. Although actually, it would probably look more like “I bought book about Korea. Lost.” where in the second sentence both the subject (I) and the object (the book) are implicit.

Possessives

It’s common to say that one noun “belongs to” another noun, eg:

  • my shoe
  • the child’s toy
  • the dog’s colour

Korean possessives work identically - you just add a suffix to a noun to indicate it “owns” the following noun - ie this requires a pair of nouns. That suffix is always 의 (“ui/ooee”).

Possessive forms are very often used with pronouns - in fact so often that there are some common “short forms”:

  • 저 (I humble) + 의 -> 저의 (my) with short form 제 - eg 제 이름 (my name)
  • 나 (I neutral) + 의 -> 나의 (my) with short form 내 - eg 내 폰 (my phone)
  • 너의 (you casual) + 의 -> 너의 (your) with short form 네 (but see note below about pronunciation)

The possessive “we” -> “our” can be formed by adding 의 (no short form). However for this pronoun only, it is optional - ie “we” can also mean “our”.

The other pronoun possessives (eg “he” -> “his”) do not have short forms.

The syllable 의 is pronounced “ui/ooee” in other situations, but in the case of possessives can optionally be pronounced “ae” instead (and this is very common).

Syllable 네 (your) is actually pronounced “ni” to avoid confusion with 내 (my).

Korean tends to use “our” more often than “my”; when speaking about anything which you share with others, use “our” - eg “our mother” instead of “my mother”, “our house” instead of “my house”. Only things which are exclusively your property should be referred to with “my” - eg “my shirt”.

Verbs - General Principles

Korean verbs are very similar to those in English. The infinitive (“dictionary”) form of a verb always ends in 다 (roughly sounds like “da”).

There are generally two categories of verbs in Korean: action-verbs (which do things) and description-verbs (which describe things). However they have a lot in common; this section describes the common behaviours and the differences will be discussed later.

English verbs change form depending upon who is doing them (“I run”/”he runs”) and the tense (“I run”/”I ran”). And these changes are sometimes unpredictable/irregular. In other European languages, verb endings can be even more complicated.

Korean verbs change suffix depending on tense, politeness level, and mode but do not depend upon who is performing them. And the vast majority of verbs are regular. There are a few forms to learn, but it’s generally simpler than in most other European languages.

Tenses are: past, present, future.

Politeness levels relevant for beginners are (roughly speaking):

  • formal (aka formal high) - used for talking to people in authority, strangers, customers, or otherwise showing extra respect
  • polite (aka informal high) - normal chat between colleagues or acquaintances
  • casual (aka informal low) - between good friends, couples, and family siblings of similar age

Modes are:

  • declarative - statements about the current state of things or the general state of things, eg “the weather is hot”, or “I like Kimchi”.
  • interrogative - for asking questions
  • prepositive - for making suggestions/recommendations
  • imperative - for giving commands

The “progressive tense” aka “continuing tense” used to express things like “I am watching” or “I am walking” is built using a helper verb, not a specific verb conjugation - somewhat similar to how English uses “am” (to-be) here. This is described later.

The most important conjugations:

  • present formal declarative -> verb root + adapter + “-mnida”
  • present polite declarative -> verb root + adapter + “-yo”
  • present casual declarative -> verb root + adapter

where the “verb root” is the infinitive minus the “da” ending, and the “adapter” depends upon the ending letters of the verb root. The rules for choosing the right adapter are slightly complicated - but once learned are at least consistent for almost all verbs.

By the way, note that “-mnida” ending. This initially sounds like an infinitive verb itself (ends in “-da”), but it is not. While all infinitive verbs end in “da”, not everything that ends in “da” is an infinitive verb!

There are similar rules for building past-formal-declarative, past-polite-declarative, future-formal-declarative, future-polite-declarative, etc.

There is also “honorific speech” - a collection of grammatical forms to show extra respect. This includes a verb suffix which is inserted before the “da” of the original verb - and this is conjugated instead of the original verb ending (see later for a dedicated section on honorific speech). In fact, there are several such verb suffixes and potentially multiple can be appended concurrently.

The mode of the sentence also plays a role in conjugating verbs. As an example, when asking a question in present formal form, verbs must end in “-mnika” instad of “-mnida”.

This all sounds rather complicated, but it’s not too bad. Most courses concentrate first on learning the “present polite declarative” form. This is unfortunately one of the more complicated conjugations (the “adapters” come in several forms) but once that is mastered it is pretty simple to change the endings to form past or future, casual or formal, interrogative or imperative.

Sometimes verbs modify other verbs. In english, we say “to want to go”, eg “I” + “to want” (conjugated) + “to go” (infinitive) gives “I want to go”. Korean works similarly, but in a different word order: “I” + “to go (root)” + “ko” + “want” (conjugated).

Examples of such modifier-verbs:

  • to want to : 싶다 (“sheepda”)
  • to have to (“must”): ??

The Korean verb “to do” (하다 - pronounced “hada”) can be used to turn many nouns into a verb, eg:

  • “love” (noun) + “to do” -> “to do love” -> “to love”
  • “speech” (noun) + “to do” -> “to do speech” -> “to speak”

The verb “to exist” (있다 - pronounced “itda”) can also be combined with various nouns to form a new verb. Examples:

  • “flavour” (noun) + “to exist” -> “to be tasty” (맛있다)
  • “fun/entertainment” (noun) + “to exist” -> “to be fun/entertaining/enjoyable” (재미있다)

Grammatically, both these -hada and -itda verbs can be seen as either one word or as noun+verb. In the second case, it is therefore possible to put an object-marker after the noun ie “in the middle”.

In a sentence that has multiple verbs, only the last one (the one at the end of the sentence) is fully conjugated. Depending on the particular grammatical construct being used, other verbs may just use the root or use the “basic form” (which is the same as the “casual” conjugation or the polite conjugation without the “-yo”; see later).

Action Verbs

Action verbs are words which describe (obviously) actions, eg “to go”, “to eat”, “to see”. They always have a subject (the person or thing doing the action) and usually have an object (the thing affected by the action).

There isn’t much more to say about these, as they are very similar in purpose to English action verbs, and the previous section has mostly described how they work.

Descriptive Verbs vs Adjectives

Overview

Adjectives in English describe attributes/properties of nouns. They can do this in three ways:

  1. as an assertion (“the house is old”)
  2. together with a “linking verb” (“the food smells good”, “the water feels cold”).
  3. as a noun modifier (eg “the old house …”, “the good food …”, “the cold water …”)

Korean works somewhat similarly, but is not identical. It has two categories of verbs:

  • “action” verbs which “do things”
  • “descriptive” verbs which “describe attributes of things”

It is these descriptive verbs which serve the same purpose as English adjectives. Descriptive verbs mean “to be {something}” or “have the property of {something}”. As with other verbs, they end in “-da”.

The verbs meaning “to be” or “to be at (some location)” are descriptive verbs, and follow the rules described in this section.

Descriptive Verb Assertions

Case (1) simply requires conjugating the descriptive verb correctly; “the house is old” becomes “house + (subject-marker) + to-be-old (conjugated)”. The verb goes at the end of the sentence, as always in Korean. There is a special case for verbs of form (noun+hada) or (noun+ittda); these can optionally be written as separate words with a “subject marker” (not a topic marker) attached to the noun - ie “in the middle”.

Note that while the subject of an action verb is who/what is doing the action, the subject of a descriptive verb is what is being described. This can be the “current topic”, eg “Regarding the house, it is old”, instead of a noun+subject-marker.

It is common to say things like (person 1) “I think pizza is delicious” and (person 2) “I think hamburgers are tastier”. These are expressed in form similar to (person 1) “With regard to me, pizza is delicious” and (person 2) “With regard to me, hamburgers are tastier”. In these cases, the topic (the speaker) is expressed using the topic-marker and then the item being described (“delicious” or “better”) has the subject-marker attached. The descriptive verb itself still has just one subject: the thing being described.

As an example: House is 집 and “to be small” is 작다 so “the house is small” is 집이 작아요 (house + subject-marker + to-be-small-in-polite-form).

Descriptive Verb Modifiers

Case (2) is formed in a similar way to English, but with a different word order. The English expression “bread smells good” is equivalent to “the smell of bread is good” and this is how it is said in Korean: “bread + subject-marker + smell (noun) + to-be-good (conjugated-descriptive-verb)”.

Descriptive Noun Modifiers

For case (3), the descriptive verb can be turned into a noun-modifier (adjective) by taking the verb root and:

  • when it ends in ㄹ then replace that letter with ㄴ (eg to-be-bad: 멀더 -> 먼)
  • when it ends in ㅂ then remove that letter and append syllable 운 (eg to-be-spicy: 맵다 -> 매운)
  • when it ends in a vowel then append letter ㄴ to the last syllable (eg to-be-slow: 느리다 -> 느린 or to-be-big: 크다 -> 큰)
  • when it ends in a consonant then append syllable 은 (eg to-be-small: 작다 -> 작은)

And yes, that last case (which is quite common) does look like a topic marker. It isn’t.

This resulting adjective always goes before the noun it describes.

Examples:

  • House is 집 and “to be small” is 작다 so “The small house ..” is 작은 집 ..
  • Dog is 개 and “to be large” is 크다 so “The big dog ..” is 큰 개 ..

Descriptive Verbs and Topic/Subject Markers

Descriptive verbs such as “to be large” or “to be hot” or “to be on (something)” don’t have an object as they don’t act on anything. However they can have multiple subjects - eg in the sentence “The cat is on the desk” there are effectively two subjects: the cat and the desk. This is dealt with by using the topic-marker for one noun, and the subject-marker for the other. In Korean, the sentence “The cat is on the desk” could be expressed as either “Regarding the cat (topic), it is on the desk (subject)” or “Regarding the desk (topic), there is a cat (subject) on it”. Whichever noun is the “ongoing topic of conversation” should be the one with the topic marker. Both action and descriptive verbs are discussed in more detail later.

A further complication is that some descriptive verbs are “compound verbs” consisting of either:

  • (noun) + (optional subject marker) + 있다 (ittda) or
  • (noun) + (optional subject marker) + 하다 (hada)

For example 재미 (가) 있다 (to have fun), or 맛 (이) 있다 (to be delicious). Such verbs (already) effectively have “two subjects” - the thing it is describing and the noun that defines what property it has. The thing being described can be specified via the “current topic”. A sentence like “This movie is fun” can become “With regards to this movie (topic), fun (subject) exists”. Similarly “This pizza is delicious” can become “With regards to this pizza (topic), flavour (subject) exists”. In this case, a subject-marker can be appended to the “property” noun - but it is optional. However it is also possible to use the subject-marker to specify the thing being described, eg “For this movie (subject) fun exists” or “For this pizza (subject) taste exists”. As Korean phrases never include multiple subject markers, the optional one attached to the property is always dropped. There are also cases where there are effectively three subjects, eg in “In my opinion, this movie is fun” or “In my opinion, pizza is delicious”. These use the topic-marker for the first part, and (as described above) the subject marker for the thing being described with no marker attached to the property.

Examples:

  • With regards to this movie, it is fun: 이 영화는 재미가 있어요 (with optional internal subject marker)
  • With regards to this movie, it is fun: 이 영화는 재미있어요 (without optional internal subject marker)
  • This movie is fun: 이 영화가 재미있어요 (internal subject marker not possible)
  • In my opinion, this movie is fun: 저는 이 영화가 재미있어요

To summarize:

  • In the simple case where there is just one thing involved (the thing “being described”), mark it with either the topic or subject marker
  • In the complex cases with two nouns, mark the thing being described with the subject marker, and the other with the topic marker
  • And if the verb is a compound one, and there is just one thing involved, and that thing is already the “current topic” then you can optionally get fancy and append a subject marker after the first part of the verb.

Using “to be”

The verb “to be” (ida) is also a kind of descriptive verb. However it is somewhat different from English, being used only to express that one thing is equivalent to another. Examples: “He student is” or “That coffee is”. In these sentences, a topic or subject marker is applied to the first noun (“He” or “That”) and the second noun (the one just before the verb) does not get any marker at all. Examples:

  • 그는 학생 이어요
  • 그것은 커피 이어요

Perhaps this can be thought of instead as forming a “labelling verb” by concatenating any noun together with “ida”, and then

As described above, other cases where English would use the verb “to be” (eg “He is tired” or “The car is fast”) instead conjugate the appropriate descriptive verb (to-be-tired or to-be-fast). Using “to be” in these cases would effectively mean “He is equivalent to tiredness” or “The car is equivalent to speed” - clearly nonsense.

Oddly, the verb “to not be” (ahnida) works differently; the thing it is describing must be expressed as a separate word with a subject-marker appended to it, eg “I(+topicmarker) student-am” but “I(+topicmarker) student(+subjectmarker) am-not”.

Superlatives

English has special grammar forms to express comparisons such as “load/louder/loudest” or “big/bigger/biggest”. Korean simply uses modifiers 더 (“more”) and 가장 (“most”), ie “loud/more loud/most loud” or “big/more big/most big”.

The Progressive Tense

The declarative mode allows statements about things “in general”, eg “I cook eggs” means “I often cook eggs” or “I can cook eggs”. The form “I am cooking eggs” is the progressive tense.

This can be expressed in two different ways: with .. 고 있다 or with .. 는 중 이다.

In the first form, you take the verb root and simply follow it with 고 + the conjugated form of verb 있다/to-exist.

In the second form, you take the verb root and follow it with 는 + 중 (“chung”) + the conjugated form of verb 이다/to-be. However there is one quirk: if the verb root ends in ㄹ then that is removed.

These forms are mostly equivalent. However when referring to natural phenomena (eg “it is raining”) or emotions (eg “I am laughing”), the first form should be used. The second form also has special behaviour when combined with “hada verbs”.

Helper Verbs

There are a few verbs that can be combined with other verbs.

The verb 하다 (“hada” - to do) has already been discussed; it can be used to build verbs from nouns (eg love + to-do -> to love).

The verb 있다 (“ittda” - to exist) can be used to express “(somebody or thing) can (some action)” via the form “(verb-root) + ㄹ/ 을 + 수 (“su”) + ittda (conjugated)”. To express “I cannot (some action)” just use 없다 (“awbta” - to not exist) instead of “ittda”.

As noted above, the verb “ittda” can also be used to form the “progressive tense”.

The verb 싶다 (“shipda” - to want to) is used by taking the root of some verb, adding 고, and then adding the conjugated form of shipda to form things like “to want to go”, “to want to buy”, etc. In this case, only the verb “shipda” is conjugated.

The verb 주다 (“chuda”), when used alone, means “to give”. However it can also be used with other verbs to request somebody to do something or to express gratitude for some action. A request is formed by using (some-verb-basic-form + chuda-conjugated-in-imperative) eg .. 말해 주세요 (“.. malhay chusayo”) meaning “(speak) (do-action-please)” or “please speak/say ..”. It can also be used to express gratitude: “you did (action) so thank you” ie “thank you for doing (action)”.

The verb 보다 (“poda”), when used alone, means “to see/watch” but can be used to form expressions meaning “try (some action)” or “see what happens when (action)”. In the past tense it can mean “I tried (action)” or “I did (action)”. It can also be used to soften a command; in English the command “do X” can be softened to the suggestion “try X” and “poda” can do the same in Korean. It uses the same form as “chuda” above, ie “(verb-basic-form) + (poda-conjugated)”.

This and That

Technically, the words for this/that are also adjectives - they modify a noun. We have:

  • this (a thing near the speaker): 이 (“ee”)
  • that (a thing near the listener): 그 (“gur”)
  • that over there (a thing not near speaker or listener): 저 (“chaw”)

As with an adjective, these words need to be followed by the noun they modify. They can be followed by any noun, eg:

  • this (near me) apple
  • that (near you) book
  • that (over there) house

However they are often used with the word “thing”: 것 (“gawt”):

  • this thing near the speaker: 이것 (“eegawt”)
  • that thing near the listener: 그것 (“gurgawt”)
  • that thing over there (not near speaker or listener): 저것 (“chawgawt”)

Yes: 그것 is the same word used for “it”. And yes: 그 is the same word for “him”. And yes, 저 can mean I/me. And yes, 이 can also be a subject marker. The actual meaning needs to be deduced from context.

Adverbs

Despite their name, English adverbs enhance not only verbs but also adjectives or other adverbs with additional attributes such as “quickly”. In English they usually come before the word they modify, but can occasionally come afterward to add different “emphasis”, eg “he quickly ran to the house”, “he turned quickly to the left”. Note that adjectives always apply to nouns, and adverbs never do.

Korean adverbs work just like in English, but always come before the word they qualify. As in English, they always have the same spelling (do not need to be conjugated).

Note that adverbs don’t apply to nouns, eg in “the quick fox” or “the fox is quick”, “quick” is an adjective while in “the fox ran quickly”, “quickly” is an adverb. There are many adjective/adverb pairs that have similar meaning (as with quick/quickly); sometimes the spelling is similar but sometimes the words are completely different. Because adverbs are not verbs, they do not end in “-da”.

Examples of adverbs:

  • 잘 (“chal”) - well
  • 더 (“daw”) - more
  • 빨리 (“bballi”) - quickly
  • 천천히 (“chawnchawnhee”) - slowly
  • 아주 (“ahchu”) - very
  • 조금 (“chogurm”) - a little
  • 정말 (“chawngmal”) - really (a stronger version of “very”)

Korean adverbs can also modify other adverbs, in which case they also come before the adverb they modify. This is just like English, eg “he very quickly ran” has identical structure in Korean.

Examples:

  • House very small-is (qualify a descriptive verb)
  • I Korean well speak (qualify an action verb)
  • I Korean very well speak (qualify adverb which qualifies a verb)

And note that the “hada” verbs can be considered either one verb or noun-plus-verb. Therefore adverbs can be placed before the whole thing, or just before the “hada” part (ie in the middle). As an example, the verb “to study” is “(study) + (hada)” and so “to study hard” is “study + hard (adverb) + hada (conjugated)”.

Politeness Levels

There are 7 politeness levels that affect Korean grammar. However only 3 are relevant for spoken Korean. One or two can be found in books and newspaper reports, and the remainder are basically obsolete/archaic.

  • 하십시오체 (“Hasipsio-che”) - known as formal, this level is used when referring to someone older than you, or with authority over you, or otherwise deserving extra respect. Waiters and shop attendants use this with customers. Strangers often address each other in this form.

  • 해요체 (“Haeyo-che”) - known as polite or informal, this level is used when referring to someone younger than you, or subordinate to you, or to acquaintances of the same age. However it can also be used with strangers at a pinch - particularly by foreigners; it’s not actively rude, just lacking in elegance.

  • 해체 (“Hae-che”) - known as casual or intimate, this is used between close friends or family members. In the present tense, verb conjugations are identical to the polite form but without the “-yo” suffix.

  • The plain level can be used by adults talking to children, by children addressing each other, and is also used in written texts. It’s not something for beginners to worry about.

In general, verbs are conjugated at a level depending on the addressee, ie the person being talked to.

As noted in the verb section:

  • formal present tense declarative typically ends in “-mnida”.
  • polite present tense typically ends in “-yo”
  • casual present tense is the polite form without the “-yo”

Any sentence should end with an appropriately polite form depending on addressee. This happens automatically with declarative statements because sentences end with verbs, and verbs are conjugated depending upon addressee. However tweaks are needed for questions, and (polite) commands:

The speech levels used in a conversation aren’t always symmetrical; a young person will use formal speech when talking to an older one, and the older may reply using informal speech. This isn’t rude, it’s just how things are done. However if in doubt, it’s probably safer to use at least the same level of politeness as the person you are talking to in order not to imply that you see yourself as “in authority”.

As mentioned earlier, the pronoun for “you” (너) doesn’t have a formal form. Instead, speakers avoid the use of “you” when addressing someone with respect. One option is to use the person’s name or title; when doing that, the word (not suffix) 님 (“nim”) must follow it: 선생 (teacher) becomes 선생님 (honorable teacher). Titles based on family role are also common, eg 할머니 (grandmother) becomes 할머님 (“honorable grandmother”) - typically used for someone else’s grandmother rather than one’s own. This sounds weird in English, but is standard Korean usage (and Japanese too). Nim can also be used after a person’s name where it is similar to the English “Mr.” : “Park Seokmin nim”.

The honorific “ssi” (씨) can be used instead of “nim” between people of approximately equal status. It’s a touch of politeness/elegance/respect without being overly humble.

Verbs can also be modified with “shi” (시) to show respect without humility. In this case, this syllable is appended to the verb root before the the verb is conjugated - ie what is conjugated is that “shi” syllable instead of the last syllable of the verb root. See the section on “honorific speech” for more details.

Note that 씨 and 시 are different.

You might see the word 존댓말 (“jondaemal”) which is “high speech” - all politeness levels from very-polite to moderate-polite. The alternative is 반말 (“banmal”) which is “low speech” - things used within a family or with very close friends.

See Wikipedia on Korean Speech Levels for more details.

Sentence Structure

Korean sentences have a word-order that is different from English. They typically have the form “subject object verb”, eg “I pizza eat”, “I home went”. More generally, sentences are typically structured “subject location time object verb”. However due to the use of “markers” for important nouns (subject, object, time, place), sentences can be put together in just about any desired order - as long as the verb is at the end. Korean sentences also tend to put the most important words at the end, with the least-informative (and most redundant) words moving to the start of the sentence. And as noted earlier, Korean often leaves out words where they are implied by the context; the candidates to leave out will be those words which are (or otherwise would be) near the start of the sentence.

English sentences often indicate the roles of words using word-ordering, eg “the cat ate the bird” is quite different from “the bird ate the cat”. As noted above, this problem doesn’t occur in Korean due to explicit subject and object markers.

Because most of the present tense polite verb suffixes end in “yo”, and verbs are always found at the ends of sentences, Korean has a distinct sound even if you don’t know the language - just listen for “yo” before each (inter-sentence) pause.

As noted earlier, markers are used to indicate the role of words in a sentence. The sentence “the book is on the desk” is:

책은 책상 위에 있어요

which grammatically is:

Book (책) subjectmarker (은) desk (책상) on-top (위) location-marker (에) verb-to-exist-at-in-polite-form (있어요)

Verbs as Nouns

It is common for a word to be both a verb and a noun. For example, in the sentence “I like pizza”, pizza is a noun and the object of the verb “to like”. However it is also possible to say “I like running”; the word “running” is also the object of the sentence - and can be derived from the verb “to run” in two ways:

  • verb-root + 기 + 를 (object-marker)
  • verb-root + 극 + 것

And yes, in this first case 를 marks the object not the default subject.

There are also a lot of words that effectively mean “the act of (doing some action)”, ie their natural form is a noun. These can then be turned into a verb by using “hada” as described earlier. Looking at it the other way, whenever you learn a “-hada” verb, you’ve also learned a noun that is of this “the act of ..” type.

Particles

A particle is a piece of grammar that can be appended to a word to affect the meaning of the word or sentence. The topic/subject/object markers are particles, and there is quite a range of other useful ones including:

  • 은/는,이/가,을/를 - topic,subject,object markers as described earlier
  • 에 (“eh”) - appended to times to indicate “at”, or places to indicate “being-at” or “to”
  • 에서 (“ehsaw”) - appended to places to indicate “happens-at” or “from”
  • 부터 - appended to times to indicate “from”
  • 에게/한테 - appended to a person to indicate “to”
  • 에게서 / 한테서 - appended to a person to indicate “from”
  • 와/과, 하고, 랑 - joins two nouns with “and” (in various politeness levels)
  • 나/이나 - joins two nouns with “either/or”
  • 로/으로 - towards (direction) /with (tools/methods)
  • 도 (“doh”) - appended to a noun (often a pronoun) to indicate too/also/even
  • 만 (“man”) - appended to a noun (often a pronoun) to indicate only/exclusively

Using 에 (“eh”) and 에서 (“ehsaw”) with places is a little tricky. The “ehsaw” form is used with action verbs when the action is occurring at that place, eg “I am waiting in front of the library”, or “we are playing in the park”. It is also used to indicate the place from which someone is coming. The “eh” form is used to indicate a place someone is going to, etc. The “eh” form is also used with the verb “to be at” (있다), eg “The cat is on the table”; being somewhere is not an “action”.

The topic/subject/object particles are used only when there is no other particle present, ie are omitted when any of the above occur at a point where topic/subject/object would normally be.

The particle 고 (“ko”) is used in many different ways:

  • to form the progressive tense (together with “ittda”)
  • to express wanting to do some action (together with “shipda”)
  • to join multiple actions, eg “dance and sing” or “ko to my friend’s house and watch TV”.

In all the above cases, the verb at the end of the sentence is conjugated, and all other verbs use only their root + “ko”.

The particle 요 (“yo”) is of course the ending for verbs conjugated in the “polite declarative” form. However it can also be used to turn a single noun into a full sentence. Examples:

  • 고영이요? (“koyawngiyo?”) - “what about a/the dog?” or just “a dog?”.
  • (name)yo? - “what about (name)?” In particular, (name) 씨는요? can mean “what about you/what do you think/how do you feel about that, mr (name)?”.

And

The concept of “and” in Korean is pretty similar to English. The things you need to know are:

  • 그리고 - used at the start of a sentence, effectively meaning “In addition, …”.
  • 과/와 (“gwah/wah”) - polite-speech form of joining two nouns to indicate “and” or “with” eg “eat pizza and salad”
  • verb-stem + 고 - used to join two verbs, eg “eat pizza and drink beer”

The “gwah” form is used after a consonant and the “wah” form is used after a vowel (the reverse of the pattern for many other particles). The particle is appended to the first noun. Note that the second noun will (likely) get a subject-marker/topic-marker/object-marker appended to it and the resulting subject/object is (A and B).

Using 고 with verbs is very simple and convenient. The “and” clause joins two subphrases, eg “I eat pizza” and “I drink beer”. Korean sentences only ever (fully) conjugate the verb at the end of the sentence, and “and” is no exception; for all verbs except the last one, append 고 to the verb-stem instead of conjugating it. Note that when the verbs are action verbs then this form implies ordering of the actions, ie first X and then Y - rather like “and then ..”. As an example, the English sentence “I eat pizza and drink beer” in Korean is effectively “I pizza eat (root) + 고 + beer drink (conjugated)”.

But/However

  • 하지만 - used at the start of a sentence, effectively meaning “However …”
  • 그렇지먼 / 그런데 - similar to the above, but with slightly more and less contrast respectively
  • 지만 - used to join two phrases expressing “X but Y”

In a sentence such as “I like dogs but (I) have two cats”, there are two phrases each ending with a verb: “I like dogs” and “(I) have two cats”. Take the stem of the first verb and append 지만 instead of conjugating it (as usual, only the last verb in a sentence is ever conjugated).

Negation

Verbs can generally be turned into their opposites by preceding them with the article 안 (choose not to, ie won’t/don’t) or 못 (am unable to, ie can’t). This is very much like English: “I don’t eat meat, I can’t eat nuts”.

However some verbs have quite different forms to express the opposite, eg 알다 (to know - “alda”) and 모르다 (to be ignorant of - “moreuda”).

And there are also modifiers that can be inserted into the middle of a verb to negate its meaning. The concept of “verb modifiers” was discussed in the section on verbs; they go between the root and the conjugated ending.

Statements that use the verb “to be” (ida) can be inverted just by using the verb “to not be” (anida): “he father is” -> “he father is-not”. This is really an example of using an “an” prefix for verbs, but is a particularly common case. However, as noted in the section on the verb “to be”, the negative form requires a subject-marker after the (second) noun.

Honorific Speech

As noted earlier, the Korean grammar itself includes different levels of politeness. This occurs in:

  • verb conjugations (eg -yo form vs -mnida form)
  • noun suffixes (eg “ssi” or “nim”)

While the “-mnida” form shows extra respect for the person you are talking to (eg an elder or someone in authority), there are two situations where you temporarily want to “boost” the politeness level:

  • for sensitive topics related to the person you are talking to
  • when talking about a person other than the one you are talking to

Examples of sensitive topics are:

  • giving a command aka proposing that someone does something
  • asking a favour
  • asking a question (of the person you are talking to)

Examples of talking about another person include:

  • talking to a good friend (in casual speech conjugation) about their parents
  • talking to a work colleague about your manager/boss

In such situations, you can conjugate the verbs for specific sentences by taking the verb root, appending 시다 (“shi-da”) if it ends in a vowel or 으시다 (“ur-shi-da”) if it ends in a consonant, and then conjugating the result. This is effectively the same as inserting 시/으시 before the 다 of any verb. In present informal (“-yo” form), following the usual rules, this becomes the ending 세요 (“sehyo”) or 으세요 (“ursehyo”). In other politeness levels or tenses, just follow the regular conjugation rules for that level/tense. However there a few quirks when appending this “shida” suffix which depend on the ending of the last syllable of the verb root:

  • a trailing ㄹ is simply dropped
  • a trailing ㅂ is dropped then 우 is added.

This form isn’t the same as a full politeness level as it is never used for making regular statements, talking about yourself, talking about things, etc. - it is only for speech about people (whether the person you are talking to, or someone else).

Note that -yo conjugation combined with appropriate use of -sehyo is pretty polite and can be sufficient for many situations.

Examples:

  • 가다 (to go) conjugates as 가요 but in honorific form becomes 가시다 which conjugates as 가세요
  • 걷다 (to walk) conjugates as 걷어요 but in honorific becomes 걷시다 which conjugates as 걷으세요.

Asking Questions

There are two types of questions in English: asking if something is true (ie questions with yes/no answers) and asking for more complex information. Korean also has this distinction.

When asking in English if something is true or not, the word order is changed and/or the word “Do” is used: “The house is large” becomes “Is the house large?” and “He likes dogs?” becomes “Does he like dogs?”. In addition, the tone goes upwards at the end of the sentence. In Korean, a yes/no question has exactly the same form as a sentence stating it is true - but with the “interrogative” conjugation of the verb, and a rising intonation (if spoken) or a question-mark (if written). The statement “The house is large” becomes a question simply by conjugating the descriptive verb “to-be-large” using the interrogative form - and the questionmark/rising tone.

For questions requiring more than just yes/no answers, Korean has, like English, a set of “question words”: what/who/when/where/how/why. However sentence structures are not rearranged - instead, the answer to any question is simply the question sentence with the question-word replaced by the relevant info. For example the question “What that is?” can be answered with “Cat that is”, or “You what drink?” can be answered with “I coffee drink”. Alternatively: if you want to make a question, think of a possible answer then replace the info you are actually seeking with the appropriate question word. In addition, conjugate the verb in the “interrogative” form. Of course, answers don’t have to be in this form..

The interrogative verb conjugation rules are different for different politeness levels, tenses, etc. For “polite formal” speech in the present tense, declarative verb conjugations end with “-mnida” while the interrogative ends with “-mnikka”. For “polite informal” speech (the “-yo” endings), the interrogative verb ending happens to be identical to the declarative one - which means that yes/no questions are identical to a statement - just with a question-mark and rising tone.

There is a particular issue regarding politeness-levels and questions: asking someone a question about themself is a fairly personal/sensitive thing to do and it can be appropriate to temporarily boost the level of politeness for such questions by applying the “honorific speech suffix” to the verb of a question before conjugating it. When using the “-yo” level of politeness this means that the verb will end in “-sehyo”; see the section on Honorific Speech for the full details.

In addition, when talking about other people in general (including asking questions about them) you should increase the politeness level as if talking to them.

As mentioned earlier, Korean generally avoids using the pronoun “you” (and also he/she). When you are asking a question to someone (eg “like cats?”), the “you” is obvious from context and so can be omitted.

Counting

As noted in the section on alphabets, numbers are written in the same was as in English.

However there are two quite separate ways of speaking numbers: the “native korean” way and the “sino-korean” way. And as in English, it is possible to write down numbers using the spoken form (equivalent to writing “twenty-four” instead of “24”).

The “sino” (chinese) form is easier to deal with, particularly for larger values. The native korean way is therefore commonly used for smaller amounts, but people switch to the chinese form for larger values. Exactly where the changeover point lies apparently depends on age and cultural background with different groups of people choosing different switch-over points. It is therefore important to be able to understand both. However in general sino-korean is used for values larger than 10.

The native korean form is always used to count specific kinds of things, eg ??.

The sino-korean way has words for zero, one, .. ten, hundred, thousand. Eleven is ten-one, twelve is ten-two, twenty is two-ten, thirty-five is three-ten-five, etc - all very logical. After nine-ten-nine comes hundred, then hundred-one, three-hundred-four-ten-five, etc.

The native Korean way is, like English, a little quirkier. There are words for 1..10, and then specific words for 20, 30, 40, 50, etc. Values such as 23 are (logically) the word for 20 and the word for 3.

Random Notes

Batchims

The consonant or pair of consonants following the vowel in a syllable (if any) is called a “batchim” (받침). Or in other words, a syllable with 2 letters always ends in a vowel and has no batchim, while any syllable with 3 or 4 letters has a batchim and does not end in a vowel.

There are some special rules about pronouncing letters (consonants) when in batchim position. In particular:

  • in a “double” batchim (one with two consonants) the second consonant is often silent
  • strong letters (ㅋㅌㅍ ie K/D/P) are reduced to their standard form (ㄱㄷㅂ)
  • aspirants (ㅅㅈㅎie s/tsh/h) are converted to ㄷ(d)

However if the syllable following a batchim starts with a silent consonant then the last (or maybe only) letter of the batchim effectively replaces that silent consonant on the following syllable. A silent batchim-second-consonant is then pronounced, and a “modified” batchim-single-consonant regains its usual pronunciation.

Many tutorials use the expression “ends in a vowel” and “has a batchim” interchangeably. For example, subject-marker “oen” is used when following a batchim, and “noen” when no batchim is present - ie when following a vowel.

First-Person-Subject-Marker Special Cases

The first-person pronoun has been discussed earlier, including the “humble” and “plain” forms. As with any noun, a subject marker can be appended to them - and this is in fact very common, as “I” is often the subject of a sentence.

When combined with the topic-marker, things work as expected:

  • 저 + 극 -> 저극 (“chaw” + “nurn” => “chawnurn”)
  • 나 + 는 -> 나는 (“nah” + “nurn” => “nahnurn”)

However when combined with the subject-marker, the results are irregular:

  • 저 + 가 -> 제가 (“chaw” + “ga” => “chehga”)
  • 나 + 가 -> 내가 - and (for unknown reasons) this is _not_ pronounced "nay-ga" as expected but like 니가` (“nee-ga”).

Because-of / Due-to

Sentences like “I am rich because I won the lottery” or “thank you for helping me” are effectively two sentences joined together. Korean does the same, but in the reverse order (cause then consequence) ie effectively what “so” does in English: “I won the lottery so I am rich” or “you helped me so thank you”. This “so” is written 사 (“sa”).

Verb Conjugation Overview

As with most languages, verbs need to be conjugated before use, ie their ending gets modified to suit the context they are used in. Some conjugations are almost trivial, eg the “high formal” (“-imnida”) conjugation. And fortunately most of the other conjugations are related: first make the “basic form” and then add a simple ending.

Sadly converting verbs into their “basic form” is somewat complicated - but it opens the door to all sorts of useful tenses and modes. For example, the present-informal-polite-declarative is just a matter of adding “-yo” to the basic form. And in fact, the basic form alone is used for casual conversation between good friends, ie no extra changes at all.

The present-informal-polite-declarative is generally the most useful; it’s for making statements about what is currently happening, or about what usually happens. Examples: “This coffee is too hot” or “I like spicy food”. And it’s polite enough to be used with acquaintances or even strangers at a push (and foreigners get extra patience) while not being overly stuffy. Because of its usefulness, it’s what most language books teach first - despite the fact that you need to master the basic form.

Modes and tenses you will need eventually:

  • casual (between good friends)
    • present declarative - just the “basic form”
    • present interrogative (asking questions) - same as declarative
    • past declarative - basic + “-ssaw”
    • future declarative - ??
  • polite (for colleagues, peer-like acquaintances, and strangers in casual contexts)
    • present declarative - basic form + “-yo”
    • present interrogative - same as declarative (but see below)
    • past declarative - basic + “ssawyo”
  • formal (for superiors, teachers, elders, customers, etc)
    • present declarative: verb root + “mnida” (when no batchim) or 습니다 (“surmnida”) (batchim)
    • present interrogative: verb root + “mnikka” (when no batchim) or 십니까 (“shimnikka”) (no batchim)
    • present prepositive (making suggestions): “mshida” (when no batchim) or 습시다 (“surmshida”)
    • present imperative (making commands): 시요, 십시오 (“shiyo”/”simshio”)
    • past declarative: verb root + ??

As shown above, for some politeness levels, there are dedicated conjunctions for asking questions (the “interrogative”). However in the casual and polite forms, just use the declarative and add a question-mark (written) or raise your voice at the end (spoken). The even politer “-sehyo” ending may be more appropriate in certain situations; see the section on “honorific speech”.

Note that the progressive (continuing) tense (“I am eating” is different from “I eat”) is constructed by using “ko ittda”; see elsewhere.

Verb Conjugation Rules for the “Basic Form” (aka fully conjugated stem)

There are about 10 different “rules” you need to remembed in order to convert any verb into its “basic” form. These rules are too complicated for this article. However in general, it means removing the “da” suffix from the verb then appending either 아 (“ah”) or 어 (“aw”).

And note that “basic form” isn’t a standard term in Korean grammar. However it is one that a few learner’s books use and I think it is helpful.

Pronunciation

As described earlier, the sounds of the Korean language are different from English, but not extremely so. While it’s a generalisation, letters are generally “softer” than their nearest English equivalents.

The “strong” variants of some Korean consonants (ㅋㅌㅍ) are like their base forms (K, T, B) but pronounced with a puff of breath (“aspirated consonants”). Think of the extra line as indicating breath.

The “double” variants of some Korean consonants (ㄲㄸㅃ) reintroduce the tension that English has by default, and the result is quite similar to English K, T, or B. It is important not to use a “puff of breath” when pronouncing these - they are tense, not “aspirated”. One good tip I read is to think of the strong consonant ㄸ as being like the “D” in Homer Simpson’s “Doh!” - a sudden explosion of sound (though not necessarily loud). Maybe it is also helpful to consider ㄲ like the “C” in “Crack!” and ㅃ like either the “B” in “Bang!” or “P” in “Pow!”.

The sounds of letters are somewhat affected by the surrounding letters; the way the mouth moves from its earlier position and then as it prepares for the next sound affects the intermediate one - and maybe fools the ear too. We do tend to concentrate on, and practice, letters when they are at the start of a word but it’s important to concentrate on their sound when elsewhere too.

Terminal Consonants (Sound Change Rule)

For syllables with a Batchim, the last consonant is “cut off” very abruptly - it is pronounced, but without any “trail-off”.

However there are some consonants whose sound cannot easily be “cut off”. These are also the consonants whose sound can be “carried on” for as long as you like: ㅅ (“ssss…”), ㅈ (“tshhhhhh…”), ㅎ (“hhh….”). Therefore these consonants are replaced by ㄷ (“d”) which does have a clear cut-off.

The strong consonants (which are pronounced with a puff of breath) have a similar issue; they also cannot be “cut off”. Therefore they all become their non-strong version.

However the above rule does not apply if the consonant can “flow into” the next syllable, ie if:

  • the next syllable starts with the silent consonant (in which case the consonant “moves to” the next syllable), or
  • the next syllable starts with the same consonant (in which case it becomes a double).

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