beginning to advanced Korean, I recognize that my readers will be at somewhat different levels and will know or not know different things, so I’ve summarized what I consider to be the basic points of Korean grammar in “The Basics of Korean” for you to check if you need a little help. I haven’t spent much time on them because it’s not terribly difficult to find good-quality materials on basic Korean grammar. If you find you’re not quite ready for this book yet, I’ve listed some useful beginning Korean books in the Appendix.
I have also tried to keep the language in my examples fairly simple. When possible, they all end in the 아/어/여요 (polite) form because those are the most useful and I wanted to keep everything consistent for the sake of clarity. Unless I say otherwise, you can use any of these expressions with any level of politeness.
The Rating System
(or, How Important Is This Grammar Point to Me?)
All the information in the section “The Basics of Korean” is material you should know before reading the rest of this book. Material in the appendixes is stuff I think might be useful for you to know, but you don’t have to study it if you’d rather not. Beyond that, I’ve rated everything in the main part of the book according to a star system, which works like this:
| ★★★★★ | Critical; with only the five-star expressions, you can communicate almost everything you need to say, and without them you’ll have trouble understanding any more than the most basic of sentences. |
| ★★★★ | Very helpful; you should learn this if you want to communicate well in Korean |
| ★★★ | Useful, fairly common, and will help you sound more natural and fluent |
| ★★ | Not that important; grammar only the TOPIK (Test of Proficiency in Korean) people care about |
| ★ | Don’t worry about this unless there’s some reason you need to know it |
Expressions are also rated according to whether or not they’re used more in speaking or in writing.
| The expression is: | |
| Speaking > Writing | used more often in speaking than in writing |
| Speaking < Writing | used more often in writing than in speaking |
| Speaking = Writing | used as often in writing as in speaking |
| Speaking | used only in speaking |
| Writing | used only in writing |
Grammatical Terms Used in This Book
I’ve tried to keep grammatical terms to a minimum here so as to avoid confusion and because, honestly, you don’t really need to know what a desiderative auxiliary verb is in order to speak Korean. Here are the absolute bare-minimum terms you should know.
| Term | Korean term | Meaning | Examples |
| Noun | 명사 myeongsa | A word that names an object, person or place | 책 chaek (book)사람 saram (person)동대문 (Dongdaemun—place)민수 (Minsu—male’s name) |
| Action verb | 동사 dongsa | A word that tells you what someone or something does | 가다 gada (to go)하다 hada (to do)먹다 meokda (to eat)살다 salda (to live) |
| Descriptive verbA | 형용사 hyeong yongsa | A word that describes what someone or something is | 아름답다 areumdapda (to be beautiful)빨갛다 ppalgata (to be red)중요하다 jungyohada (to be important)덥다 deopda (to be hot) |
| Adverb | 부사 busa | A word that describes how something is done | 조용히 joyonghi (quietly)빨리 ppal-li (quickly)그래서 geuraeseo (therefore) |
| Pronoun | 대명사 dae myeongsa | A shorthand for a noun | 나/저 (I) na/jeo너/당신 neo/dangsin (you)우리 uri (we) |
| Directional verb | A word that describes the action of going or coming | 가다 gada (to go)오다 oda (to come)돌아가다 doragada (to go back)떠나다 tteonada (to leave) | |
| Past Tense | 과거 gwageo | 했다 haetda (did)먹었다 meogeotda (ate)더웠다 deowotda (was hot) | |
| Present Tense | 현재 hyeonjae | 한다 handa (do)하고 있다 hago itda (doing)아름다운 areumdaun (beautiful) | |
| Future Tense | 미래 mirae | 할 것이다 hal geosida (will do)할 거야 hal geoya (will do—반말)하겠다 hagetda (will do) | |
| PassiveB | 피동사 pidongsa | A verb that describes what is done to something else | 쓰이다 sseu-i-da (to be written/used)보이다 bo-i-da (to be seen)먹히다 meokida (to be eaten) |
| CausativeB | 사동 sadong | A verb that describes the action of making something happen | 안기다 angida (to hug)먹이다 meogida (to feed)씌다다 ssu-i uda (to put something[a hat/glasses] on someone else) |
| Statement | 서술문 seosulmun | A sentence ending in a period that neither orders nor suggests anything to anyone else | 이렇게 해도 돼요.Ireoke haedo dwaeyo.It can be done like this. |
| Question | 의문문 uimunmun | A sentence that asks for information and ends with a question mark | 어떻게 하면 돼요?Eotteoke hamyeon dwaeyo? How should it be done? |
| Command | 명령문 myeong-ryeongmun | An order telling someone else to do something | 이렇게 해 보세요. Ireoke hae boseyo.Try to do it like this. |
| Suggestion | 청유문 cheongyumun | A suggestion to someone else that they do something | 이렇게 할까요?Ireoke halkkayo?Shall we do it this way? |
A In Korean, adjectives are also considered verbs. In their dictionary form they translate to “to be.” For example, 아름답다 means “to be beautiful” and if you want to use it to describe someone, you have to conjugate it appropriately.
B For more on passives and causatives, and the mysteries of their creation, see page 33.
1 The Basics of Korean
Pronouns and Contractions
Let’s start by reviewing the basics here. As you should know by this point, you change your pronouns depending on how much respect you want to give the person you’re talking to.
| English | Lower | Higher |
| I | 나 na | 저 jeo |
| You | 너 neo | 당신 dangsin |
| We | 우리 uri | 저희 jeohui |
| This | 이것 igeot | 이것 |
| That | 그것 geugeot | 그것 |
| That (over there) | 저것 jeogeot | 저것 |
너 is used all the time in 반말 (informal language), but if you want to be respectful, it’s far more common to refer to someone you’re talking to in the third person: 선생님 seonsaengnim (teacher), 계현씨 gyehyeonssi (polite way to address a person named 계현) or even 민정 엄마 minjeong eomma (Minjeong’s mother) or something similar. Although 당신 is technically the polite way to say “you,” it’s almost never used in spoken Korean and if it is, it often means a fight is about to break out. So be very careful with 당신.
As
