Soyeung Koh - Essential Korean Phrasebook & Dictionary

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Basic grammar 1 Word order Unlike in English, the Korean verb (action verb or adjectival verb) comes at the end of a sentence or clause. Also the Korean word order is quite flexible because there are special markers attached to the words in a sentence. They are called particles, and they mark the function of the words in a sentence: which word is a subject or an object etc. By contrast, in English you cannot simply change the word order in a sentence without violating its meaning because the position of words in a sentence tells us which is a subject or an object. One could not say, for example, A mouse chased the cat to mean The cat chased a mouse.

In Korean, the meaning is clear irrespective of the position because of the particles affixed to the subject and the object: The cat- ga a mouse- reul chased and A mouse- reul the cat- ga chased ( ga indicates the cat is the subject, reul indicates a mouse is the object). 2 Common particles Some of the common particles are: Subject marker: i ( ) (after a word ending in a consonant), ga ( ) (after a word ending in a vowel); Topic/contrast marker: eun ( ) (after a word ending in a consonant), neun ( ) (after a word ending in a vowel); Object marker: eul ( ) (after a word ending in a consonant), reul ( ) (after a word ending in a vowel); Place/time marker (in/at/on) : e ( ) (place marker eseo ( ) has a special usage but it is not covered here) 3 Leaving out the subject of a sentence Although the subject comes at the beginning of the sentence, it is often omitted if it is clearly understood from the context by the participants in a conversation. Where do you live? Eodi saseyo? (lit., where live?) I live in Sydney Sidenie sarayo (lit., Sydney at live) What are you doing? Mwo haeyo? (lit., what do?) I am studying Gongbu haeyo (lit., study) 4 Action verbs and descriptive verbs Korean adjectives conjugate like verbs, therefore they are often called adjectival verbs or descriptive verbs. To distinguish them from an adjectival or descriptive verbs, a normal verb is sometimes called an action verb. You can see most of the adjectives in the dictionary of this book have two entries, one in a dictionary form which ends in -da ( ) and the other in an adjectival form which modifies a noun in front of it. Verb conjugation is carried out by adding infixes or suffixes to the verb stem.

The verb stem is the part of the verb remaining after -da ( ) is taken away from the dictionary form of the verb. 5 Honorific language When you speak Korean, you have to know who you are talking to. Depending on your relationship with them, their age and their social status, you have to choose an appropriate level of politeness when you talk. There are several speech levels in Korean. These speech levels are indicated in a sentence by the sentence-final suffixes attached to the end of verb stems. We will not cover all these levels here.

We will only talk about the most common polite endings, which travelers are most likely to use in a real situation: for mal polite form, informal polite form and informal honorific form. Formal polite forms This is used in formal situations, and is common in mens conversation. You add -mnida ( ) if the verb stem ends in a vowel. Otherwise, you add -seumnida ( ). If you want to make a question sentence, you simply change the final -da ( ) of these formal polite verb-endings into kka ? ( ? ). Informal polite forms This is common in daily conversation.

This form requires a slightly more complicated process compared to the others. Firstly you have to look at the final vowel of the verb stem. If it is a ( ) or o ( ), you add -ayo ( ). Otherwise you add -eoyo ( ). If the verb stem ends in a vowel, you come to have two consecutive vowels after this conjugation. Two consecutive vowels will usually be fused into one.

For example, o ( ) and a ( ) become wa ( ). If the two consecutive vowels are the same vowel, one of them will be eliminated. If the verb stem ends in eu ( ), which is the weakest vowel in Korean, it will also be eliminated. There are a couple of exceptions to this conjugation rule. If the verb stem ends in ha ( ), you always change this ha ( ) into haeyo ( ). For the verb ida ( ) (to be: equation), you change this particular verb into yeyo ( ) after a word ending in a vowel.

Otherwise you change this into ieyo ( ). To make a question sentence, you simply say the same sentence with a rising tone at the end as you normally do in a question. There is no grammatical change between a statement and a question sentence when using this form. Informal honorific forms When you talk to the people clearly superior to you, such as your clients or guests, much older people or socially high-ranking people, you use an honorific form of language to show your respect to them. Of course you never use this form to refer to yourself. The pro cess of this conjugation is quite simple.

You add - seyo ( ) if the verb stem ends in a vowel. Otherwise, you add -euseyo ( ). Too many levels to work out which one to use? Dont panic! They are all polite forms at least. Whichever form you use, you are still in the range of common expectation from the native Korean speakers. Anyway, they often use a mixture of all these levels of language even in a conversation with the same person. 6 Some useful grammatical forms The following grammatical items might help you to make new sentences as long as you know the words.

Would/Could you do something for me? ( jom ) ( ) verb stem + a/eo jusige sseoyo? ( / ? ) If the final vowel in the verb stem is a ( ) or o ( ), you choose -a ( ). Otherwise you choose -eo ( ). Please refer to the informal polite form section for more details on how to conjugate verbs. to fix, gochida, ...jom gochyeo jusige sseoyo? Could you fix ...? to find, chatda, ...jom chaja jusige sseoyo? Could you find ...?, to see, boda , ...jom bwa jusige sseoyo? Could you see ...? Please do something (for me) (jom) ( ) verb stem + a/eo juseyo? ( / ? ) Please refer to the above to see how you add -a ( ) or -o ( ). to fix, gochida , ...jom gochyeo juseyo? Please fix ... to see, boda , ...jom bwa juseyo? Please see ... to see, boda , ...jom bwa juseyo? Please see ...

Dont do it, please verb stem + ji maseyo ( ) to eat, meokda , meokji maseyo Dont eat ..., please. to smoke, dambae piuda, dambae piuji maseyo Dont smoke, please. to come, oda , oji maseyo Dont come, please. I want to do something verb stem + go sipeoyo ( ) to go, gada , gago sipeoyo I want to go. to see, boda , -reul/eul bogo sipeoyo I want to see ...

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The Basics 1.1 Personal details 1.2 Today or tomorrow? 1.3 What time is it? 1.4 One, two, three... 1.5 The weather 1.6 Here, there... 1.7 What does that sign say? 1.8 Legal holidays

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