👨🏻‍🏫A Few *Important* Things About Korean Verbs

The basic sentence structure and two different types of Korean verbs

안녕! Hi, there!👋🏻

Did you catch the difference? I wrote 안녕 instead of 안녕하세요. If you remember from last week, this is the casual form of “Hello.” On the other hand, 안녕하세요 ends with the syllable 요, so we know this phrase falls into the polite level of the language. By saying 안녕 to you, it means that I take you as a close friend of mine now😁! In real life though, it takes some time before people start making the transition from polite Korean to casual Korean, especially if there is an age gap. But that’s a topic for another time. 

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Instead, we’re going to begin today’s lesson with 10 random Korean words. (Try and read them out loud if you are able to read Hangul):

➊ 먹어요
➋ 쉬어요
➌ 일해요
➍ 마셔요
➎ 가요
➏ 읽어요
➐ 자요
➑ 이야기해요
➒ 전화해요
➓ 와요

Take a close look at these words and based on what we have learned so far, see if you can spot the commonality. I know it may seem intimidating, especially if you’ve only just started learning Hangul, but do your best! 화이팅😊!

Did you find something? Let’s check together.

If you noticed that they’re all verbs, give yourself a pat on the back! All of the words in our list end with the syllable 요 which is one of the three different types of verb conjugations specifically used for polite Korean. If you also noticed that all of these verbs are in polite form, then give yourself another pat! Again, going back to last week’s lesson, we know that verbs in infinitive form, or “dictionary” form, end with 다 meaning that these ten verbs are already all conjugated and are ready to be used in speaking😉.

Now I’m going to give you the meanings of these verbs so we can slowly get started on building our vocabulary as well (However, don’t write them in your notebook just yet✋🏻!):

➊ 먹다: to eat
➋ 쉬다: to rest
➌ 일하다: to work
➍ 마시다: to drink
➎ 가다: to go
➏ 읽다: to read
➐ 자다: to sleep
➑ 이야기하다: to talk
➒ 전화하다: to call
➓ 오다: to come

Wait! You noticed that the words look different, didn’t you😏? I reverted the conjugated verbs back to their infinitive form. So if you want, you can write them in your notes like this:

➊ 먹다: to eat ➝ 먹어요
➋ 쉬다: to rest ➝ 쉬어요
➌ 일하다: to work ➝ 일해요
➍ 마시다: to drink ➝ 마셔요
➎ 가다: to go ➝ 가요
➏ 읽다: to read ➝ 읽어요
➐ 자다: to sleep ➝ 자요
➑ 이야기하다: to talk ➝ 이야기해요
➒ 전화하다: to call ➝ 전화해요
➓ 오다: to come ➝ 와요

We have the infinitive verbs on the left and the conjugated on the right. Maybe you are already trying to see if you can find a conjugation pattern, but unfortunately it’s not that simple. (It doesn’t mean that it’s very difficult either😅) Instead of going over how to conjugate Korean verbs, we’re going to focus on two other (simple) things:

1. They are the last bit of the Korean sentences

Let’s take a look at the following sentence:

“I eat kimchi.” = “저 김치 먹어요.”

The exact same sentence is written in English on the left and Korean on the right. However, you might notice that in the Korean sentence the word order is a little different from the English version.

• I eat kimchi.
  ➝ S + V + O

• 저 김치 먹어요.

  ➝ S + O + V

In both cases, the sentences start with a subject “I”; however, in English, it’s followed by the verb, whereas the object, 김치, is placed before the verb in Korean. I don’t know if you have noticed but this is the reason why you often hear Korean sentences ending with the same syllable “요” like “사랑해요” (I love you), “배고파요” (I’m hungry), “얼마예요?” (How much is it?) and so on when watching K-dramas. (The word order of Korean sentences can actually be very flexible in spoken Korean though!)

Let’s try and write the following two simple sentences like the example above. Let me give you the vocabulary you need, coke = 콜라 [kol-la], newspaper = 신문 [shin-mun]. The verbs you need are in the list above.

• I drink coke.

• I read newspapers.

Try and write them on a piece of paper before you check mine below!

Coca-Cola in a newspaper! I’m putting it here just so you don’t accidentally see the answer before trying them on your own! But if you love me, please don’t leave me😭

Now, let’s check your work!😆

• I drink coke = 저 콜라 마셔요.

• I read newspaper = 저 신문 읽어요.

Did you get it right? Fairly easy, wasn’t it? Generally, in order to write a sentence in Korean, you just need to make sure that

1. You start your sentence with a subject first

2. Place your object (콜라 and 신문 in our example)

3. End the sentence with the “conjugated” verb form (Not the infinitive or “dictionary” verb form)

This third point is very important, especially since I have seen some of you trying to write sentences on your own in the comments using infinitive verbs instead. For example:

I learn Korean = 저 한국어 배우다.

한국어 means the Korean language and the verb 배우다 means “to learn”. But since it is in the infinitive form (which we know, because it ends with the syllable 다), it should be conjugated before being put in the sentence. The conjugation of the verb is 배워요, so the sentence should be written as:

저 한국어 배워요.

This is the correct way to write “I learn Korean” or “I’m learning Korean”.

If you have any questions about what we’ve talked about so far, leave a comment.

Now, on to our second point.

2. Action verb vs Descriptive verb

In Korean, there are two different types of verbs.

First, we have action verbs. These verbs involve some sort of action or movement—duh! That’s literally what verbs are, right? I’m just stating the obvious! They are the words that generally come to our minds when we think about verbs. They are used when someone or something is doing something! Now, what might seem unfamiliar to you is the second kind—Descriptive verbs. But what is it exactly? Well, a descriptive verb is any verb that is not doing something; rather it describes something like a noun instead. To better help you understand the difference, let’s take a look at the following examples:

• 먹다 [meok-da]

This is the first verb from the list above and it’s an action verb that means “to eat”. The verb is describing the action of eating.

Now, let’s take a look at another verb!

• 맛있다 [ma-shi-dda]

This is a descriptive verb that means “to be tasty” or “to be delicious”, because it doesn’t involve any action. You might be thinking, “But isn’t it just an adjective?”. And I’d say yes… but no. In English, this particular word would be translated as “tasty” or “delicious” which are adjectives because they can come in front of a noun like a pizza🍕!

• A tasty pizza or

• A delicious pizza

But looking at the Korean word 맛있다 from a grammatical point of view, it’s considered a verb, because it is written in the form of a verb. Remember, Korean verbs all end with 다 in the infinitive form. This means that you cannot place this word in front of a noun, because it’s not an adjective. My advice would be when you come across a verb that sounds like an adjective in English, in Korean it’s going to be a descriptive verb.

So, take a look at the ten verbs again and tell me which ones are descriptive verbs…

Trick question! Actually there are none😜!

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If you have seen the stories I post on my IG, you’d know my hobbies are learning Spanish👅 and working out at the gym🏋️. What is your hobby? What do you like to do when you have spare time? In the comments, try and write a sentence about your hobby. Make sure to follow the subject ➝ object ➝ verb order! Let me show you a couple of examples:

• I’m learning Spanish = 저 스페인어 배워요

• I work out = 저 운동해요

If you can’t find the right word for your hobby, drop a comment and I’ll help you out!

And… that’s it for today! How was today’s lesson? Let me know if you learned anything new or have any questions😆!

담에 또 봐!💙