๐๐ปLetโs Talk About Politeness Levels in Korean
How difference levels of politeness change the way this language is spoken
Hi there!๐๐ป
I hope you are having a good weekend! I have been a little unwell and maybe thatโs why I procrastinated a lot this week. Itโs negatively affecting the habit I have been trying to build since the beginning of the year and Iโm trying my best to get back at it before it gets too late๐ฅด.
Iโm starting a new cohort for my Korean 101: Hangul Crash Course! It begins March 30th and goes until April 20th. Iโm not going to offer this course for some time after this one, so come and join if you have been thinking about it! If you want to sign up now, click the button below๐.
Review
In the last post, we learned one single verb: ์ด๋ค. And we know that it needs to be conjugated when we speak which can be either ์ด์์ or ์์ depending on whether the last letter of a word is a consonant or a vowel. I read through all of the comments from the last post and a lot of you guys have done a great job introducing yourselves with your names!๐๐ป๐๐ป๐๐ป But, there were a couple of common mistakes, so letโs clear those up before we start talking about todayโs topic!
์์ is the correct spelling for the conjugation of the verb โto beโ that comes after vowel ending words. Some people wrote ์์ after their vowel ending names and itโs probably because I mentioned that it is pronounced as ์์ [e-yo]. So, letโs not get confused and remember the conjugation of the verb ์ด๋ค is either ์ด์์ or ์์.
I saw some of you writing ์ ๋๋ค as the verb which is grammatically 100% correct but this particular conjugation of the verb was mentioned nowhere in the post. Letโs try and only use the grammar forms that are being discussed about in each post so I know you have understood everything and are on the right track๐!
In addition, some people wondered why ์์ is pronounced as ์์ instead of โye-yoโ and the reason is simply due to sound change rules. As the name suggests, sound change rules cause changes to the pronunciation of certain words, but they exist to help you read Korean easier, not harder or more confusing. So, when you build your Korean vocabulary, you will come across words that donโt exactly sound as they are written. When that happens, donโt panic!๐ฑ Just keep in mind that there are sound change rules applied to many different words and learn the pronunciation of these words one by one as you encounter them. You will gradually get used to it and will eventually start reading them naturally without even thinking about the rules.
์ ๋๋ค vs ์ด์์/์์
Now, letโs take a moment and talk about the other conjugation of the verb some people used to introduce their names that is mentioned above, ์ ๋๋ค. Take a look at this example๐:
Hello! I am Jeon Jungkook.
์๋ ํ์ธ์! ์ ๋ ์ ์ ๊ตญ์ ๋๋ค.
์๋ ํ์ธ์! ์ ๋ ์ ์ ๊ตญ์ด์์.
Here, we have two different sentences saying exactly the same thing. There is no difference in translation between ์ ๋๋ค and ์ด์์, as well as ์์, which means that ์ ๋๋ค is just another conjugation of the verb ์ด๋ค. As a matter of fact, it is even easier to use this particular conjugation because you donโt need to check if the word that comes in front of it ends with a consonant or a vowel. Now, you probably want to ask me, โThenโฆ isnโt it better to just go with ์ ๋๋ค when telling my name to someone?โ
Wellโฆ maybe?๐ค
This leads us to todayโs topic: Politeness levels in Korean
As somone born and raised in Korea, I know that people there take manners seriously. That is why you see your favorite K-pop band doing a 90-degree bow on stage like these bulletproof boys pictured above. And this culture of showing respect to other people has evolved along with the Korean language as well.
Simply put, you use different conjugations of a verb to show different levels of politeness you want to express to the person you are talking to.
Letโs take a look at the verb โto beโ again for a second. The infinitive form, ์ด๋ค, can be mainly conjugated in three ways:
Formal: ์ ๋๋ค
Polite: ์ด์์/์์
Casual: ์ด์ผ/์ผ
In English, itโs the subject of the sentence that affects the verb conjugation. But, as you can see, formality level is what decides which conjugation you have to use in Korean. If I bring the example sentences with Jungkook here againโฆ
Hello! I am Jeon Jungkook.
์๋ ํ์ธ์! ์ ๋ ์ ์ ๊ตญ์ ๋๋ค.
์๋ ํ์ธ์! ์ ๋ ์ ์ ๊ตญ์ด์์.
Now we know the difference between these two sentences. Although, they donโt have any difference in the meaning but sentence #1 sounds more formal than #2! Then, how about casual way of introducing yourself? Take a look at the following sentence:
์๋ ? ๋๋ ์ ์ ๊ตญ์ด์ผ.
Because the name ์ ์ ๊ตญ ends with a consonant ใฑ, I put ์ด์ผ instead of ์ผ. If your name ends with a vowel when written in Korean, then you would just put ์ผ after the name. But, did you notice that the verb conjugation is not the only thing that changed from formal and polite versions of the sentence๐?
Instead of ์๋ ํ์ธ์, I wrote ์๋
Instead of ์ , I wrote ๋
And it is for the exact same reason that the components that make up the sentence need to stay consistent in terms of the formality level. Therefore, we can make an educated guess that ์๋ and ๋ are the casual counterparts of ์๋ ํ์ธ์ and ์ respectively.
Korean politeness levels
I would like to tell you a little about these three main formality levels so you have a better context.
Formal speech, as the name suggests, is used in formal settings. One of the most common Korean phrases is also in formal level, โ๊ฐ์ฌํฉ๋๋คโ which means โThank youโ. The easiest way to find if a phrase is in formal level is by checking if a statement ends with โ๋๋คโ. Formal level gives a strong and respectful feel to the listener. The situations where you want to use this level of formality includes:
Making official announcements
Giving speeches
Meeting your new professor, new boss, parents-in-law
Serving your military service
Polite level of Korean speech will always end with ์. Iโm sure that youโve heard Korean phrases that end with this sound many times watching K-dramas or listening to Korean songs. I often refer to this particular politeness level as โ์ formโ. When you hear ์ at the end of a phrase, you get a soft and polite feel which is definitely different from the formal level.
Casual speech, on the other hand, doesnโt have a common ending as the ending can vary depending on the verb. But, as we know that formal speech ends with โ๋๋คโ and polite speech ends with โ์โ, phrases with a different ending will probably be casual. Casual speech doesnโt necessarily sound rude when used in the right settings. If used appropriately, it will sound very friendly and show that you have a very close relationship with someone. But of course, speaking casual Korean when you are supposed to use polite or formal Korean, will make you sound rude.
About now, you are probably thinking, โDo have to learn all three conjugations for each verb I learn?โ My answer to that question would be no. You donโt. The formality level you want to focus on and learn would be the polite level which is a very versatile level. You just wonโt sound either too formal or too casual, no matter the circumstance! An added bonus is that your phrase will usually turn into a casual one if you drop the ending โ์โ. For example,
Polite level: โ๋ฐฅ ๋จน์์ด์.โ = โI ate.โ
Casual level: โ๋ฐฅ ๋จน์์ด.โ = โI ate.โ
So, if you know how to speak polite Korean, youโll automatically know how to speak casual Korean as well, killing two birds with one stone๐ค๐ค.
Andโฆ thatโs it for today! How was todayโs lesson? Let me know if you learned anything new or have any questions. Also, try and introduce yourself again, but in casual level this time as if we are assigned to the same grade 1 class๐!
๋ค์์ ๋ ๋ด!๐
์๋ ! ๋๋ ๋ฐ๋ ํฐ๋์ผ ๐
Thank you so much for another great lesson, and Iโm sorry to hear you are feeling unwell!
Iโve taken few beginner level lessons in the past and even then I didnโt quite understand the difference between ์ด์์ & ์ ๋๋ค, but you explain things in a way that is much easier for me to comprehend and I truly look forward to your email every Sunday. I will keep on learning...๊ฐ์ฌํฉ๋๋ค ์ ์๋!!!๐๐ป and please, get well soon! ๐
์๋ ! ๋๋ ์๋๋ ์์ผ.
Thank you so much for this lesson. It helped me understand better an article i read last week about politeness levels in Korea. You are an amazing teacher! Hope you are feeling better๐