#topic marker

길에

Aw thank you! That’s a pretty good example actually! 

In the first sentence you’re talking about today “today is…” in the second sentence you’re talking about what someone did today “you did…today”. 

You see how the two are different? The topic in the first sentence is 오늘 and that’s why you use the topic marker here. In the second sentence “오늘 뭐했어요?” the topic is hidden/implied, the topic would be you/he/she/it/the pony/whatever that did something today and that’s where you’d use your topic marker. So if 오늘 did/does something you could put an 은 on it. 

외에

Okay, smarties, time to kick it up a notch! Today is gonna be tough because we’re gonna talk about the subject marker ㅠ.ㅠ 

This is difficult because it’s actually a lot like the topic marker and often you can use them in each others place, although with (slightly) different meanings. So the difference between subject and topic can be hard to grasp but I’ve had it explained like:  

Subject: Cake Topic: Cupcakes  

Now I’ve been searching like a mad Dums (like seriously, books, website, old notes), but it’s really hard to find any definitive way of saying when you have to use what because a lot of topics can be subjects as well. You can say that topic markers have at topic and comment structure, but it doesn’t seem to me like that cannot be the case with the subject marker. Plus sometimes the so-called subject marker doesn’t even mark the subject but has more of a “no other than something” function. 

But (!) don’t despair yet. I’ll make a couple of examples and you can see how 이/가 can be used.      

이름이 뭐예요?  What’s your name?

고양이가 부드러워요.  Cats are soft. 

Here 이름 and 고양이 are the subjects. When meeting a consonant it’s 이 and when it’s a vowel at the end it’s 가. Don’t think there’s much to add to the subject.

리사는 한국 사람이 예요? Is Lisa Korean?

Here you can see that you can have both topic and subject markers in the same sentence. Here it’s pretty obvious that the nationality is the subject of the conversation and that Lisa is the topic. Or maybe it’s putting emphasis on it being Lisa because it’s a conversation between or involving several parties. 

제가 케이크 만들어요. I made the cake.

Lastly, I wanna show that 저 when meeting the subject marker 가 changes to 제가. (Same goes for banmal 나 which becomes 내가 - but don’t use banmal until you’re comfortable in jondaemal!) Also, I wanted to show the “none other than something” function, in this case, it is no one but I who is making the cake.   

The topic of this post is the topic marker.. See what I did there? Haha.. I’ll just go sit in the corner.

은/는 was one of the most difficult things for me to learn about Korean because there wasn’t a thing like it in any of the languages I’d previously learned and to be honest I’m still not sure I’ve mastered it. You can kinda compare it to “the” or “a/an” but not completely and I would recommend you put those words out of your head as they don’t really exist in Korean. Also, 은/는 are part of other constellations so it’s a bit confusing, but just assume all 은/는s are topic markers for now.  

Maybe, first of all, I should clarify that in the Korean language there are several markers or particles, they have different uses. In this case, it’s a suffix which means it’s something you put at the end of another word to affect it.

Okay, so what is a topic marker and what does it do? I have brought my friend Neun Cat to help with that. Neun Cat wants to be the most important thing around, but on his own, he’s not that special, therefore he always seeks out the topic of the conversation, because he thinks by association that makes him important too. When Neun Cat jumps up onto your lap, it’s because you’re the one who’s doing something, you’re the center of your sentence. If Neun Cat goes to lie on someone else or something else they’re the topic, they are in focus.  

Still doesn’t make sense? Let’s look at some examples and see if it does then.

저는 고양이예요. I am a cat. Here you want to make it clear that you are the cat. The thing/person who is something is me, therefor 는 attaches itself.

저의 친구는 가사예요. My friend is a singer. Here 는 is attached to friend not you because it’s your friend who’s a singer, not you. Often your topic will be early on in the sentence but as you can see here it’s not always first.

Sometimes Neun Cat will meet a topic that ends in a vowel instead of a consonant, but our Neun Cat is so eager to be near the topic that he shapes himself to fit and instead become Eun Cat - Like this:

동물은 고양이예요. The animal is a cat. So just as before it’s the animal who is something and in this case its a cat.

Sometimes the topic marker doesn’t only work as a topic marker but you also use 은/는 when you want to make special emphasis on the thing.

화요일은 좋아해요. I like Tuesdays the best. Here Tuesday isn’t liking anything, but it’s Tuesday that is particularly liked by the speaker. So they’re saying other days are good but as for Tuesday I really like that particular day.  

And last but not least it also works as a contrast in conversation.

A: 저는 사과 좋아해요. B: 저는 배 좋아해요. A: I like apples. B: I like pears. So A makes a statement and B puts emphasis on the fact that they like something different. When talking you might also put pressure on the 저는 like you might if you were speaking English.

- used when talking abt general facts.

사과는 빨개요.

-used when introducing urself/someone

저는 엘리프예요.

이쪽은 저희 어머니예요.

-showing contrast/opposite

동물 좋어해요?

[...·eun] • [...·neun]

(omittable in spoken Korean) (topic marker; general information, description; generally preceding static verbs; indicates that the important information comes after the particle) as for N, when it comes to N

If N ends with a consonant ➡ 은 suffixe