Lesson Three introduces Korean Verbs. This page is the best place to start if you can
read Hangul, but are not yet able to understand Korean.
From this page on, it is assumed you can read Hangul, the Korean alphabet. If not, please look through lessons one and two and then return here.
Korean verbs are extremely important. Verbs in Korean sentences are the most important part of the sentence. In fact, it is the only part you need for the sentence to be complete. Korean, unlike English, does not mention the subject of the sentence if it can be assumed from context. For example, in English, one might ask "Are you hungry?" In Korean, if someone could just ask "Hungry?" and people knew who they were referring to, then it is perfectly fine to leave off the "you." You may hear this in English as well, but it is not considered grammatically correct. It is considered grammatically correct in Korean!
So, to sum up that paragraph, the verb is the only needed part in a Korean sentence. Everything else is extra.
Now I know you are eager to start learning verbs and looking them up in the dictionaries, but we must cover one important piece of grammar first. Korean verbs can take many different forms, depending on who you are talking to. Korean still has social status literally integrated into the language itself. The verb "to be" when speaking to an older person or teacher will be slightly different than "to be" when speaking to your best friend. Most Korean verbs have the same root, regardless of who you are talking to, but you will change the ending of the verb depending on who you are speaking with.
먹다 is the dictionary form of the verb "to eat." The dictionary form consists of the verb root, 먹 in this example, and the 다 ending. Go ahead, look up a few of your favorite verbs here or even better, grab yourself a copy of Declan's Korean Flashcards (contains over 3600 words with audio, arranged in vocabulary sets) to start building a strong foundation of Korean verbs. You will see all forms they list end in 다. If you remove the 다 ending, you will be left with the verb root. The verb root of 먹다 is 먹. The verb root by itself has no meaning. You must remove the 다 ending and replace it with a different ending depending on what you want to say and who you want to say it to.
In my mind, I see three different, very distinct endings for speaking and writing. Formal , Polite , and Casual .
Formal Endingㅂ니다 / 습니다
Polite Ending어요 / 아요
Casual Ending어 / 아
For now, we will focus on the two most common styles of verbs you will use, polite and casual. As you can see above, there are also two different endings for both polite and casual speech. The way you decide which ending to choose is based on the verb root. If the last vowel in the verb root is ㅗ or ㅏ then you choose the 아요 (polite) or 아 (casual) ending. If the last vowel in the verb root is anything other than ㅗ or ㅏ, then you choose the 어요 (polite) or 어 (casual) ending. Look at the following chart of commonly used verbs and compare the verb root to the ending to get a better understanding of this. I will refer to the Formal ending section next.
EnglishVerb RootDictionary FormPolite EndingCasual EndingFormal Ending
To Have있있다있어요있어있습니다
