Particles - Endings attached to words to specify what significance the word has in the sentence. The particle is attached to the end of the word, without a space in between the word and the particle.
Subject Particle
One of the first and most common particles you will run into is the subject particle. In English, one of the most basic parts of a sentence is the subject. It is a required part in English, but is not required in Korean. The subject tells us who or what is doing the action.
As you learned in Lesson Three, 먹다 means To Eat. You also learned that you could say 먹어요 to mean "I'm eating." Up until now though, we haven't learned how to specify who or what is the subject if we need to for clarification.
The subject particle has two forms. 이 and 가. 이 comes after a word ending in a consonant, and 가 comes after a word ending in a vowel.
For example, let's say Eunji is eating. 은지 ends in a vowel, so we attach 가 and get 은지가. 은지가 means Eunji, as the subject of the sentence. The 가 is what makes Eunji the subject. Then, we can simply add the verb 먹다 in the proper present tense form, and we have our sentence. 은지가 먹어요 in the polite form, 은지가 먹어 or simply 은지 먹어. Eunji is eating. As you will notice, when speaking in the casual form, particles are commonly left off.
In Lesson Four, we learned the irregular verb 있다. 있다 can mean To Be, as in location. There is a pencil. From Lesson Four, you should have memorized 연필 means pencil. 연필이 means pencil, as the subject. 연필이 있어요 means "There is a pencil (there, as in location)." 연필이에요 means "It is a pencil." Be sure to keep 이다 and 있다 separate when it comes to the verb To Be.
Say "There is (a) _____" by filling in the blank with the words below, using the correct subject particle.
책
연필
책상
개
고양이
텔레비전
우유
Object Particle
Another very common particle is the object particle. This states which word in the sentence is the object of the sentence, or the word receiving the action. It has two forms as well. 을 after a word ending in a consonant, and 를 after a word ending in a vowel.
In Lesson Three you were asked to learn the verb 마시다, To Drink. You should be able to say "I drink" or "I'm drinking" but you haven't been able to specify what it is you are drinking. You specify this using an object particle. 우유 means milk. If you attach the proper object particle to it, you get 우유를 . You can then say 우유를 마셔요. In Lesson Four you learned 물 means water. Now you should know that 물을 마셔요 means "I'm drinking water." or "I drink water." Now, try these sentences.
앤나가 물을 마셔요.
