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HOW TO SAY “I/ME”

~가 can be attached to 저 and 나 to indicate that “I” is the subject of a sentence or clause. When the particle is attached, the stem changes slightly - the proper spellings are 제가 and 내가.

HOW TO SAY “YOU”

The word “you” isn’t said very often in Korean, so there are a few ways to get around this:

1. Most of the time you use somebody’s (usually job) position when referring to or talking about them. E.g boss, student, teacher, customer, CEO and so on.

2. It is common for Korean people to refer to people that you are close to as your own family member.

3. You can usually call any man or woman that looks very old 할머니 or 할아버지

4. You can generally call any strange man or woman that you don’t know 아저씨 or 아주머니

5. In formal situations, you can use "너”. The subject and object particles we have already learned can be attached to this word. If ~가 is added to 너, it changes to 네가. In order to distinguish its pronunciation from 내가, the way 네가 is pronounced is 니가 (knee-ga)

6. You can also use 당신, which means you. You may use it talking to anybody, but Korean people hardly use it. most people that say 당신 are foreigners used to saying you in a sentence.

BASIC CONJUGATION (diary/plain form)

Every sentence we’ve learned so far has been unconjugated. This following conjugation is called diary form or plain form. It is commonly used when writing to yourself in a diary, writing tests, books, articles, research papers, and other times when one is not writing. Used in a sentence, one should use 나 as it is seen as informal. When written it is usually just relaying facts so is seen as neither formal or informal. It’s possible to use this form in conversation, but you’re more likely to hear what we learn next lesson. Although not used in conversation, this form is incredibly important to know.

VERBS - PRESENT TENSE

When the last syllable of the stem ends in a consonant, you add ~는다 to the word’s stem

For example, 나는 밥을 먹는다 = I eat rice

When the last syllable of the stem ends in a vowel, you add ~ㄴ to the last syllable followed by 다

For example, 나는 한국어를 배운다 = I study Korean

VERBS - PAST TENSE

Some grammatical principles require the addition of “~ㅏ/ㅓ” to the stem. The slash means you need to choose which to use. The following is the rule to determine which is used.

If the last vowel in a stem is ㅏ or ㅗ (including ㅑ or ㅛ), you add ~아 followed by the remainder of the grammatical principle. (The only exception is ‘하’. If the last syllable in a stem is 하, ㅕ must be added to the stem followed by the rest of the grammatical principle.

If the last vowel in a stem is anything but ㅏ or ㅗ, you add ~ㅓ followed by the remainder of the grammatical principle.

When conjugating to the past tense, we need to add ~았다/었다 to the stem of the word. Following the rule above;

~았다 is added to words with the last vowel being ㅏ or ㅗ, and ~었다 is added to words with the last vowel being anything but ㅏ or ㅗ. Finally, ~였다 is added to verbs with the last stem syllable being 하.

A few examples:

나는 문을 닫았다 = I closed the door

나는 창문을 열었다 = I opened the window

See book for how to merge the conjugation with the stem when the last syllable ends in a vowel.

VERBS - FUTURE TENSE

Future tense is easy and simply a matter of adding “~겠다” to the stem of a word. There is no difference if the stem ends in a vowel or consonant.

For example, 나는 가겠다= I will go

ADJECTIVES - PRESENT TENSE

To conjugate an adjective to present tense, nothing is changed.

So,  그 선생님은 아름답다 is correctly conjugated in diary form.

ADJECTIVES - PAST TENSE

To conjugate adjectives to past tense, we follow the same rule used for past tense verbs. Add ~았다/었다 to the stem of the adjective. If the final letter of the word is a vowel, ~았다/었다 can be merged into the stem itself.

For example, 그 음식은 맛있었다 = That food was delicious

그 길은 길었다 = The road was long

이 것은 비쌌다 = This was expensive (merged last syllable & conjugation)

그 남자는 잘생겼다 =  That man was handsome (merged last syllable & conjugation)

ADJECTIVES - FUTURE TENSE

Conjugating adjectives to future tense is the same as doing so with verbs - all you need to do is add ~겠다 to the stem of the adjective. 

For example, 그 것은 맛있겠다 = That thing will be delicious

CONJUGATING 있다 (all uses)

So far all our examples using 있다 have been adjectives, so to conjugate, they are left in their original state.