How To Study Korean - Lesson 1 - Basic Korean Sentences

10/17/2017 How to study Korean | Lesson 1: Basic Korean Sentences
Vocabulary
The vocabulary is separated into nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs for the purpose of simplicity.
Click on the English word to see information and examples of that word in use (you probably wont be able to
understand the grammar within the sentences at this point, but it is good to see as you progress through your
learning).
A PDF file neatly presenting these words and extra information can be found here.
Want to give your brain practice at recognizing these words? Try finding the words in this vocabulary list in a Word
Search.
Nouns:
Play = Korea
Common Usages:
= Korean person
= Korean language (For Korean people, Korean language class is called ())
= Korean person
= Korean history (in school, Korean history class is usually called ())
= Korean culture
= Korean economy
= the Korean War
= Korean stock market
= Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK)
Notes: The formal name of the country is
Examples
7 = I lived in Korea for seven years
= I will go to Korea next year
= My mom will come to Korea this year
= I learned Korean in Korea
= High school is difficult in Korea
= that house was built in Korea
= I live in Korea
Play = city
Play = name
Play = I, me (formal)
Play = I, me (informal)
Play = man
Play = woman
https://www.howtostudykorean.com/unit1/unit-1-lessons-1-8/unit-1-lesson-1/#thisthat 1/12
Play = this
Play = that
Play = that (when something is far away)
Play = thing
Play = this (thing)
Play = that (thing)
Play = that (thing)
Play = chair
Play = table
Play = teacher
Play = bed
Play = house
Play = car
Play = person
Play = book
Play = computer
Play = tree/wood
Play = sofa
Play = China
Play = Japan
Play = door
Play = doctor
Play = student
Adverbs and Other words:

Play = to be
Play = not
Play = yes
Play = no
There are 1050 vocabulary entries in Unit 1. All entries are linked to an audio file. You can download all of these files
in one package here.
For help memorizing these words, try using our Memrise tool.
Greeting Words
When learning a language, people always want to learn hello, how are you, and thank you before anything else.
I know that. However, at this stage you only know words and have no knowledge or experience in how to use or
conjugate these words. The grammar within these words is too complex for you to understand right now. However,
you can just memorize these words as one unit and not worry about the grammar within them at this point.
Play = hello
and are the two words that are commonly used to say thank you. However, they are rarely used in
those forms and are almost always conjugated. They can be conjugated in a variety of ways, which you wont learn
until Lesson 5and Lesson 6. I will show you a list of the more commonly used forms, but I cant stress enough that
you wont understand how this works until later lessons:
Play
Play
Play
Play
Play
Play ? = How are you?

Technically the appropriate expression in Korean, but not as common as how are you in English. I would say that
using ? is an English style of greeting people in Korean.
Play = Please
It is, of course, important for you to memorize these expressions in Korean, but you need to know that there is a
reason why they are said that way. For now, dont worry about why they are said that way, and simply memorize
them. We will get back to them in later lessons when they become important.
Sentence Word Order
One of the hardest things to wrap your head around in Korean is the alien-like sentence structure. For our purposes
in Lesson 1, Korean sentences are written in the following order:
Subject Object Verb (for example: I hamburger eat)

Or
Subject Adjective (for example: I beautiful)
I am going to quickly explain what a subject and object mean, as your ability to understand later concepts
depends on your understanding of this.
The subject refers to person/thing/noun/whatever that is acting. The subject does the action of the verb. For
example, the subject in each sentence below is underlined:
I went to the park

I will go to the park
My mom loves me
He loves me
The dog ran fast
The clouds cleared up
In English, the subject always comes before the verb.
The object refers to whatever the verb is acting on. For example, the object in each sentence below is underlined
My mom loves me
The dog bit the mailman
He ate rice
Students studied Korean
In English, the object always comes after the verb. However, a sentence with a verb does not require an object. For
example:
I slept
I ate
He died
Sometimes there is no object because it has simply been omitted from the sentence. For example, I ate or I ate
rice are both correct sentences. Other verbs, by their nature, cannot act on an object. For example, you cannot
place an object after the verbs sleep or die:
I sleep you
I die you
Subjects are also present in sentences with adjectives. However, there is no object in a sentence with an adjective.
The subjects are underlined in the following adjective-sentences below:
School is boring
I am boring
The movie was funny
The building is big
My girlfriend is pretty
The food is delicious
It is incredibly important that you understand this from the very beginning. Every Korean sentence MUST end in
either a verb (like eat, sleep or walk) or an adjective (like beautiful, pretty, and delicious). This rule is so important
that Im going to say it again: Every Korean sentence MUST end in either a verb or adjective.
It is also important to point out here that there are two ways to say I or me in Korean. Depending on how polite
you need to be speaking, many things within a sentence (mostly the conjugation) can change. You wont learn about
the different honorific conjugations until Lesson 6, so you do not need to worry about understanding those until then.
However, before you reach those lessons, you will see two different words for I, which are:
, used in informal sentences, and

, used in formal sentences.
As Lessons 1 5 make no distinction of formality, you will see both and arbitrarily used. Dont worry about why
one is used over the other until Lesson 6, when politeness will be explained.
Okay, now that you know all of that, we can talk about making Korean sentences.
Korean Particles (~/ and ~/)
Most words in a Korean sentence have a particle (a fancy word to say something) attached to them. These particles
indicate the role of each word in a sentence that is, specifically which word is the subject or object. Note that there
is absolutely no way of translating these particles to English, as we do not use anything like them.
The following are the particles you should know for this lesson:
or (Subject)
This is placed after a word to indicate that it is the subject of a sentence.
Use when the last letter of the last syllable of the subject is a vowel. For example:
=
=
Use when the last letter of the last syllable of the subject is a consonant. For example:
=
=
or (Object)
This is placed after a word to indicate that is the object of a sentence.
Use when the last letter of the last syllable is a vowel. For example:
=
=
Use when the last letter of the last syllable is a consonant. For example:
=
=
We can now make sentences using the Korean sentence structure and the Korean particles.
1) I speak Korean = I Korean speak

is attached to I (the subject)
is attached to Korean (the object)
2) I like you = I you like

is attached to you (the object)
3) I wrote a letter = I letter wrote

is attached to letter (the object)
4) I opened the door = I door opened

is attached to the door (the object)
5) My mom will make pasta = My mom pasta will make

is attached to my mom (the subject)
is attached to pasta (the object)
I am sure that you will be tempted to start substituting Korean words into those constructions to make real Korean
sentences. However, at this point, that is too complicated. The goal of this lesson is to familiarize yourself with
the structureof Korean sentences.
The same could be done for sentences with adjectives. However, remember that sentences with adjectives will not
have an object:
1) My girlfriend is pretty: My girlfriend is pretty

: is attached to my girlfriend (the subject)
2) The movie was scary = The movie was scary

: is attached to the movie (the subject)
There is one more particle that you should be aware of before we go any further.
(Place or time)
We havent talked about places or times yet, but if you do an action at a time, you must attach the particle to the
word indicating the time.
is also attached to a word to indicate that it is a place in the sentence. I want to write more about what does,
but at this point, it would only confuse you. For now, it is sufficient to know that is used to indicate a place in a
sentence.
Again, it is hard to translate these particles into English, but, plays the role of the underlined words in the
following sentences:
1) I went at 3pm
2) I went to the park
Sentences with a place/time can also have an object in them. For example:
3) I ate hamburgers at 3pm
If I were to write those same sentence using Korean structure and particles, they would look like this:
1) I 3pm went
2) I park went
3) I hamburgers 3pm ate

In these cases, at 3pm or to the park act as adverbs (a word that tells you when, where, how, how much). There
is no set place for an adverb within a sentence, and it can generally be placed anywhere (except the end). Adverbs
will be discussed at length in Lesson 8.
Again, the purpose of this first part of Lesson 1 was to familiarize yourself with the different Korean particles and
sentence structure. This knowledge will act as your base for upcoming lessons when you will apply yourself to make
actual sentences with verbs/adjectives in Korean. While you will have to wait a little bit to create those types of
sentences, we can now talk about creating actual Korean sentences with the word to be.
To be:
Now its time to learn how to make an actual sentence using the word to be. English speakers often dont realize
how difficult this word is in English. Look at the following examples:
I am a man
He is a man
They are men
I was a man
They were men
In each of those sentences, the word to be is represented by a different word (is/am/are/was/were) depending on
the subject and tense of the sentence. Luckily, in Korean, the same word is used to represent is, am, are, was and
were. This word is
should not be thought of as a verb or an adjective in Korean, as in most cases it acts differently. I will teach you
how differs from verbs and adjectives as it becomes important (in future lessons).
Sometimes however, is somewhat similar to adjectives. Remember that sentences ending with adjectives do
not have objects in them. Whenever a sentence is predicated by an adjective, there will be no object in the
sentence. Only sentences with verbs have objects. Lets look at some examples:
I eat hamburgers (eat is a verb, the object is a hamburger)

I meet my friend (meet is a verb, the object is my friend)
I study Korean (study is a verb, the object is Korean)
I listen to music (listen is a verb, the object is music)
All of those sentences (can) have objects because the verb is the predicate of the sentence. However, in sentences
that are predicated by adjectives:
I am pretty
I am beautiful
I am hungry
I am smart
This means that we can never use the particle ~/ in a sentence predicated by an adjective (because ~/
denotes that there is an object). The object particle is also not used when using the word . The basic structure
for a sentence predicated by is:
[noun/] [another noun] []
For example:
I man = I am a man
Now substitute the words for man and I:
=I
= man
+ +
gets attached directly to the noun. So, the above construction looks like:
= I am a man
It is very important that you remember that ~/ is not attached to words in sentences with . The following
would be very incorrect:
is the only word that acts like this, and is one of the reasons why you should treat it differently than other verbs
or adjectives.
The focus of this lesson (and Lessons 2 and 3) is to introduce you to simple Korean sentence structure. Until you
reach Lesson 5 and Lesson 6 you will not be exposed to the conjugations and honorifics of Korean verbs, adjectives
and .
In reality, these words are never (or very very rarely) used without these conjugations and honorifics. Therefore,
while I stress the importance of understanding the structure of the sentences presented in this Lessons 1, 2, 3 and 4
do not use the sentences in any form of communication with Korean people, as they will most likely not be
understood. In order to completely understand what is presented in Lessons 5 and 6 (and for the rest of your Korean
studies), it is essential that you understand what is presented in these first four lessons even though they may be
seen as technically incorrect.
For all of the technically incorrect (un-conjugated) sentences presented in Lesson 1 4 I will provide a correct
(conjugated) version of the same sentence in parenthesis below the un-conjugated version (one formal and one
informal conjugation). Note one more time that you will not understand these conjugations until Lessons 5 and 6 (for
verbs and adjectives) and Lesson 9 (for ).
Other examples of in use:
= I am a woman
( Play / )
= I am a teacher
( Play / )
= I am a person
( Play / )
______ = I am a _______
( _______ / _____)
You can substitute any noun into the blank space to make these sentences.
This and That (//)
You can see in the vocabulary above that the word for this is in Korean.
We use in Korean when we are talking about something that is within touching distance (For example: this pen
i.e. the one I am holding). Just like in English (this) is placed before the noun it is describing. For example:
= This person
= This man
= This woman
= This car
= This table
= This chair
Unfortunately, there are two words for that: and . Early learners of Korean are always confused with the
difference between and .
We use when we are talking about something from a previous sentence or from previous context, regardless of if
you could see it or not. Providing examples would be too difficult right now because you do not know any Korean
sentences. However, if I were to say: I dont like that man [when your friend mentioned him in a previous sentence].
The word that in that sentence would be how is used.
We use when we are talking about something that we can see, but cannot touch because it is too far away.
We can place or before a noun to describe this or that thing just like we did with .
= This person
= That person
= That person
= This man
= That man
= That man
= This woman
= That woman
= That woman
= This chair
= That chair
= That chair
= This table
= That table
= That table
Again, although the English translations of and are the same, it is important to remember that they are not
the same word in Korean.
One of the most common words in Korean is meaning thing. When , or are placed before , the
result is a compound word. Therefore, when placing after , or , there should not be a space between the
two. In other words, the following are words in and within themselves, and not two separate words:
= this thing
= that thing
= that thing
We see this same phenomenon happen with other common words that you learn in future lessons. You dont need to
worry about this now, but we see this same thing happen with the word (meaning place) and (meaning
time).
With these words, the word thing isnt necessary in the English translation. Let me explain.
Ill use that as an example, but the same idea can be applied to the word this.
That can be placed before a noun to describe it. As we saw earlier:
That person
That man
That woman
However, it can also be a noun itself. For example:
I like that
In this type of English sentence, that is referring to some thing that you like. It is a noun. It is a thing.
Therefore, the sentence could just as easily be said as:
I like that thing
I dont like to use grammatical jargon in my lessons, but if you know what these words mean, it could be helpful. In
both English and Korean, that can be a determiner (as in, I like that man), and it can also be a pronoun (as in I
like that). When used as a determiner in Korean, you should place before a noun. When used as a pronoun in
Korean, the word is used.
In this same respect, while , and translate to this, that and that respectively, and are placed before nouns
to indicate this noun, that noun and that noun, , and are nouns (they are pronouns). Therefore,
they do not need to be followed by the redundant word thing, although their meanings would be exactly the same:
I like this
I like this thing
I like that
I like that thing
We can now use these nouns as subjects or objects in a sentence. We will look at how they can be used with
next.
Using This/That with
Remember, translates to to be and is conjugated as am/is/are in English. Now that we know how to use ,
and (and , and ), we can now make sentences like this:
That person is a doctor
We can start by putting those words into the Korean structure:
That person doctor is
And then changing the English words to the appropriate Korean words:
+ +

Play ( / )
More examples:
= That person is a teacher
( Play / )
= This (thing) is a table

( Play / )
= That (thing) is a bed

( Play / )
= That person is a man

( Play / )
= That person is a woman

( Play / )
= That (thing) is a car

( Play / )
= This (thing) is a tree

( Play / )

How To Study Korean - Lesson 1 - Basic Korean Sentences

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10/17/2017 How to study Korean | Lesson 1: Basic Korean Sentences

Notes: The formal name of the country is

Play = that (when something is far away)

Play = this (thing)

Play = that (thing)

Play = that (thing)

Adverbs and Other words:

Play ? = How are you?

Sentence Word Order

Subject Object Verb (for example: I hamburger eat)

I went to the park

, used in informal sentences, and

Korean Particles (~/ and ~/)

1) I speak Korean = I Korean speak

2) I like you = I you like

3) I wrote a letter = I letter wrote

4) I opened the door = I door opened

5) My mom will make pasta = My mom pasta will make

1) My girlfriend is pretty: My girlfriend is pretty

2) The movie was scary = The movie was scary

3) I ate hamburgers at 3pm

3) I hamburgers 3pm ate

I eat hamburgers (eat is a verb, the object is a hamburger)

[noun/] [another noun] []

Now substitute the words for man and I:

Other examples of in use:

This and That (//)

That can be placed before a noun to describe it. As we saw earlier:

However, it can also be a noun itself. For example:

Therefore, the sentence could just as easily be said as:

I like that thing

Using This/That with

That person is a doctor

We can start by putting those words into the Korean structure:

That person doctor is

= This (thing) is a table

= That (thing) is a bed

= That person is a man

= That person is a woman

= That (thing) is a car

= This (thing) is a tree

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