korean beginners lesson three

7/28/2019 Korean Beginners Lesson Three

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Beginners Lesson Three

Korean Verbs

Lesson Three introduces Korean Verbs. This page is the best place to

start if you canread Hangul, but are not yet able to understand Korean.

From this page on, it is assumed you can read Hangul, the Korean

alphabet. If not, please look through lessons one and two and then

return here.

Korean verbs are extremely important. Verbs in Korean sentences are

the most important part of the sentence. In fact, it is the only part you

need for the sentence to be complete. Korean, unlike English, does notmention the subject of the sentence if it can be assumed from context.

For example, in English, one might ask "Are you hungry?" In Korean, if

someone could just ask "Hungry?" and people knew who they were

referring to, then it is perfectly fine to leave off the "you." You may

hear this in English as well, but it is not considered grammatically

correct. It is considered grammatically correct in Korean!

So, to sum up that paragraph, the verb is the onlyneeded part in aKorean sentence. Everything else is extra.

Now I know you are eager to start learning verbs and looking them up

in the dictionaries, but we must cover one important piece of grammar

first. Korean verbs can take many different forms, depending on who

you are talking to. Korean still has social status literally integrated into

the language itself. The verb "to be" when speaking to an older person

or teacher will be slightly different than "to be" when speaking to your

best friend. Most Korean verbs have the same root, regardless of who

you are talking to, but you will change the ending of the verb

depending on who you are speaking with.
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is the dictionary form of the verb "to eat." The dictionary form

consists of the verb root, in this example, and the ending. Go

ahead, look up a few of your favorite verbshereor even better, grab

yourself a copy ofDeclan's Korean Flashcards(contains over 3600

words with audio, arranged in vocabulary sets) to start building a

strong foundation of Korean verbs. You will see all forms they list end

in. If you remove the ending, you will be left with the verb root.The verb root of is. The verb root by itself has no meaning.You must remove the ending and replace it with a different endingdepending on what you want to say and who you want to say it to.

In my mind, I see three different, very distinct endings for speaking andwriting. Formal , Polite , and Casual .

Formal Ending /Polite Ending /Casual Ending /

For now, we will focus on the two most common styles of verbs you willuse, polite and casual. As you can see above, there are also two

different endings for both polite and casual speech. The way you

decide which ending to choose is based on the verb root.

---If the last vowel in the verb root is or then you choose the (polite) or (casual) ending.-----If the last vowel in the verb root is anything other than or,then you choose the (polite) or (casual) ending. Look at thefollowing chart of commonly used verbs and compare the verb root to

the ending to get a better understanding of this. I will refer to the

Formal ending section next.
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EnglishVerb

Root

Dictionary

Form

Polite

Ending

Casual

Ending

Formal

Ending

To Have To BeGood

To Go To Not

Have

To Do

Let's look at a couple.means "to have." is the verb root. Thelast vowel in is. Since this is not or then we know tochoose the/endings depending on whether we will need to bepolite or if it is casual speech.

(~) has a verb root of. The final vowel in this root is, sowe need to choose the/ endings.If you look at, this has a verb root ofwith a final vowel of.So, since that is or, it must take the/ ending. Understandthe general pattern?

Irregular Verb Patterns

Now, as you can see in the chart, there will be some situations that donot follow this exactly.means "to go". If you remove the toget the verb root you are left with. Following this pattern, youwould add/ to the verb root, and get something like.The real way is just. ------It has been shortened because


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otherwise we just say two of the same vowel in a row. Since that is a

waste of time and breath, it is simply or.The final verb is the chart above is. This is a very common verb inany language. This one verb is irregular all on its own. It doesn't

follow a pattern, and you just need to memorize the case. It shouldn't

be too hard because you will see this all over the place. has a rootof. The polite form is and the casual form is. Just take a fewminutes right now to memorize this and then you will never have to

worry about it again.

Done? Ok, let's move on. Below is a table of irregular verbs that followa pattern. Briefly look over the table and then continue on.

English Verb Root Dictionary Form Polite Ending Casual Ending

To Drink To Meet

To Come To Be Busy To Not Know To Be Hot

The first one is "To Drink" or. If we remove the dictionaryending, we are left with. Following normal patterns for the politeform, we would have. To make it easier and sound better,the real polite form is.Any verb root that ends inwillnaturally take the/ endings, and we shorten+ to.Other verb examples that take this pattern are -, -, -.


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Next we meet (get it?). This one should be easy. We already

went over it with. Since the verb root ends in, we shorten

to. Also, keep in mind this pattern works with verbroots that end in

as well.

If it ends in it would naturally take the ending. This would be

a double vowel sound so we just shorten it the same way. Other verb

examples that take this pattern are -, -, -.Next, we come to (ok, I will really stop now, I promise!). The verbroot is. This would naturally take the ending, making.Wouldn't it be much easier to combine the and the into? It

sure sounds better and smoother. That is exactly what we do.

Whenever a verb root ends in, it will naturally take the endingand because all of you will know this lesson, you will naturally

combine the and the to. Other verb examples that takethis pattern are -, -.Next, we have. The verb root is. Following normal verbpatterns we would figure the polite form would be. Try and

say that. Now, try and say. That is the correct way. When a verb

root ends in, we drop the, look at the last vowel in the root thatis left (not including the) and add the appropriate ending.For this example, the last vowel would be. So, when we drop the and add the ending, we get. Other verb examples thatfollow this pattern are -, -, -.The next verb is. The verb root is. You might be thinking,

that ends in so wouldn't it follow the above irregular pattern, andbecome? Indeed, it would, except Koreans have decided if a


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verb root ends in (not just), then we will double up the byadding a second to the end of the syllable before the.And then we drop the.. We added a to and got. We

dropped the and got. Together, we have.Other verb examples using this pattern are -, -, -.The final verb in the verb chart above is. You should definitely be

good with verb roots by now and instantly know it is.Now, with this irregular pattern, you must remember two things.Often,

1) Step one: when a verb root ends in, you should drop the andadd. After that, you move to the second step.2) Step 2: If it ends in, when we pick a style such as polite style,

it should naturally take the ending.This is another pattern where we combine two characters to make it

smoother. and combine into. We get in the end.: -, -.

Now you should know the verb patterns you will run into. You can takea verb out of a dictionary such asDeclan's Korean Dictionary, find the

root, and put it in either casual language or polite language. But you

may still be wondering what exactly that means! Is polite language

simply the same thing as if you were to be polite in English?
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Similar, yes...but not the same. If you want to think of it as the same,

then you should just remember to be polite to everyone in Korea or

when speaking Korean. Here is the thing, since Korean is still a

language with social status still built into the actual language, you

must be polite with your speech or you will be considered very rude.

You should use the polite style with anyone older than you, above you,

new to you. A teacher, a parent, a stranger, pretty much everyone

except your closest friends! You may use casual language when

speaking to someone younger than yourself, your close friends, and

your brothers and sisters. Any other time would be considered rude. So,

based on this, choose which to use wisely. If you are talking to an adult

and they are using casual verbs, that is because you are younger. This

does not mean you should use the same verbs when speaking to them.

You should be polite. This means that each of you will add different

endings to the verbs.

Now that you can take a verb from the dictionary, find the root, make it

into a casual or polite verb, and actually know whether it should be a

casual or polite verb, you are ready to actually use some.

Remember how in Korean verbs can be used all alone and thesentence will be grammatically correct?

Let's see some examples. If we were to say, what exactly arewe saying? We know it is a polite way, and it means "to eat" (don't

worry if you haven't memorized the verbs yet. You will be sent to the

homework page shortly to do some memorization). But do we know

what we are saying when we say to someone? Well, itdepends :). You could be saying "I'm eating." Or, you could be saying"you're eating". You could be saying "eat." If someone said "What do

you want to do?" You could reply. In Korean you can use theverbs in a much more general manner than in English. Later we will see


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how to add words such as "I" or "You" if necessary to clear up the

meaning of a sentence.

Another example could be. This means To Be Good. If someoneasks you how is something, you can say! Like, "Are my newshoes ok? Do you like them? How are they?" "!". Or, if you arehaving a casual conversation about something with your friend, and

they say something and in English you would just give the reply "Good!"

or something, you can just say!(remember, it's a conversationwith your friend).

This whole concept about the verbs being so general is hard to learn at

first. Just try your best! Casual verbs can have even more meanings

than other forms! If you say you could be saying I'm going, you're

going, someone's going, let's go, are we going?, etc. A lot of Korean is

about what can be assumed. If it can be assumed, there is no need to

say it in the language. One of the most recommended Korean

language products,Rosetta Stone Korean Level 1, makes learning this

part a breeze. This wraps up the intro to Korean verbs! It's time for you

to memorize a few, and to go back and make sure you know the

patterns covered on this page. There will definitely be more to come on

verbs later.

Print/Study the Homework Page

Homework

Lesson Three

Memorize these common verb patterns
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Normal or

Takes/ ,,

Normal not

orTakes/ ,,

Ends in Combine to ~/~,,

Ends in Combine to/ ,

Ends inDrop add appropriate

ending

-,

-

Ends in

Double the, drop add

appropriate ending

-,

-

Ends in or

Simply add or leave as is

(casual)

- , -

Ends in Combine to/,,

Memorize These first 10 common verbs and forms. To form casual style,simply drop the from the polite style.

To Do To Have(~) (~) To Not Have To Go To Eat To Drink To Get Up


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To Sleep To See To Be Good

korean beginners lesson three

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