KOREAN LANGUAGE TUTORIAL

LESSON 20

Korean lessons: Lesson 20

Some Quick Notes about Korean Verbs and Adjectives

Now it is time to start learning things that you can apply to any verb or any adjective. There are a few things you need to know about Korean verbs and adjectives: 1) I said this before (twice) but I’m going to say it again. Every Korean sentence must end in either a verb or an adjective (this includes 이다 and 있다). Every sentence absolutely must have a verb or adjective at the end of the sentence.
2) You should notice (it took me months to notice) that every Korean verb and adjective ends with the syllable ‘다.’ 100% of the time, the last syllable in a verb or adjective must be ‘다.’ Look up at the vocabulary from this lesson if you don’t believe me.
3) In addition to ending in ‘다’ many verbs and adjectives end with the two syllables ‘하다.’ ‘하다’ means ‘do.’ Verbs ending in 하다 are amazing, because you can simply eliminate the ‘하다’ to make the noun form of that verb/adjective.
Confused? I was at first too. In fact, I don’t think I knew this until 3 months after I started studying Korean – but it is something so essential to learning the language. It is confusing to English speakers because we don’t realize that words can have a verb/adjective form AND a noun form.
For example:
행복하다 = happy
행복 = happiness
성공하다 = succeed
성공 = success
말하다 = speak
말 = speech/words
성취하다 = achieve
성취 = achievement
취득하다 = acquire
취득 = acquisition
You don’t need to memorize those words yet (they are difficult), but it is important for you to realize that ‘하다’ can be removed from words in order to create nouns.

Korean Verbs
We have already talked about verbs a little bit in previous lessons, but nothing has been formally taught. You learned the basic verb sentence structure in previous Lesson. Let’s look at this again. If you want to say “I eat food” you should know how to use the particles 는/은 and 를/을:
“I eat food”
I는 food를 eat
To make a sentence, you simply need to substitute the English words with Korean words: 저는 + 음식을 + 먹다
저는 음식을 먹다 = I eat food

*Note - Although the structure of the sentences presented in this lesson is perfect, the verbs are not conjugated, and thus, not perfect. You will learn about conjugating in next Lesson. Before learning how to conjugate, however, it is essential that you understand the word-order of these sentences. However, because of some strange Korean grammatical rules, the sentences provided in the "Adjectives" section are technicality perfect but are presented in an uncommon (but simplest) conjugation pattern.
As with previous lessons, a conjugated example is provided beneath the un-conjugated example:

Let’s look at more examples:
저는 케이크를 만들다 = I make a cake
(저는 케이크를 만들어요)
저는 배를 원하다 = I want a boat
(저는 배를 원해요)
저는 한국어를 말하다 = I speak Korean
저는 한국어를 말해요)
저는 공원에 가다 = I go to the park (notice the particle 에)
(저는 공원에 가요)
저는 문을 닫다 = I close the door
(저는 문을 닫아요)
저는 창문을 열다 = I open the window
(저는 창문을 열어요)

Note that sentences with verbs don’t necessarily need to have an object in them: 저는 이해하다 = I understand (저는 이해해요)

Korean Adjectives
Korean adjectives, just like Korean verbs are placed at the end of a sentence. The main difference between verbs and adjectives is that an adjective cannot act on an object. Notice, in the sentences below that there is no object being acted on.
Adjectives are very easy to use. Just put them into the sentence with your subject:
(Remember that the examples in parentheses show sentences that have been conjugated which you have not learned yet.)

저는 아름답다 = I am beautiful
(저는 아름다워요)
저는 작다 = I am small
(저는 작아요)
이 버스는 크다 = This bus is big
(이 버스는 커요)
그 병원은 새롭다 = That hospital is new
(그 병원은 새로워요)

의Possessive Particle
You already know that ‘I’ in Korean is 저/나. You also know the names of many objects.
Using 의 you can make sentences that indicate the owner/possessor of an object.
저 = I
책 = book
저의 책 = my book
선생님의 차 = the teacher’s car
저의 손가락 = my finger
You can use these words in sentences you already know (with verbs and adjectives): 선생님의 차는 크다 = The teacher’s car is big
(선생님의 차는 커요)
저는 선생님의 차를 원하다 = I want the teacher’s car
(저는 선생님의 차를 원해요)
저의 손가락은 길다 = my finger is long
(저의 손가락은 길어요)

좋다 and 좋아하다
The word 좋다 in Korean is an adjective that means “good.” Because 좋다 is an adjective we can use it just like any other adjective:
이 음식은 좋다 = this food is good
(이 음식은 좋아요)
그 선생님은 좋다 = that teacher is good
(그 선생님은 좋아요)
There is also 좋아하다 which is a verb meaning ‘to like.’ Because 좋아하다 is a verb, can use it just like any other verb:
저는 이 음식을 좋아하다 = I like this food (저는 이 음식을 좋아해요)
저는 그 선생님을 좋아하다 = I like that teacher (저는 그 선생님을 좋아해요)
좋아하다 gets formed by removing ‘다’ from 좋다and adding 아 + 하다. There is a reason for why this is done, and there is an explanation for how it is done - but you do not need to know this yet. For now, just understand that:
좋다 is an adjective which cannot act on an object
좋아하다 is a verb which can act on an object