KOREAN LANGUAGE TUTORIAL

LESSON 23

Korean lessons: Lesson 23

"Low Informal Conjugation"
Basic Conjugation: Past, Present, Future

As I have said in every lesson so far - every sentence that you have learned thus far has
not been conjugated.

All the sentences you have learned so far would never actually be
used in Korean because they are not conjugated. I felt you needed to know basic sentence
structure before you learned how to conjugate. The good news, however is that
conjugating in Korean is much easier than other languages (including English and
especially French!).

An important note before you begin
This lesson will show you how to conjugate past/present/future verbs in the most basic
way.

Although all of these conjugations are grammatically correct, they are rarely used in
conversation. This form is sometimes called “diary form” because it is usually used when
writing to yourself in a diary. It is also used when writing a test, book (not in dialogue),
research paper, newspaper article, magazine article, and other times when you are not
speaking/writing to a specific audience.
Though not important in conversation, these conjugations are incredibly important if you
want to understand more complex grammar later on.
The only part of speech that gets conjugated in Korean is verbs and adjectives. As you
already know, a sentence must end in either a verb or adjective.
Verbs

Present Tense
1) When the last syllable of the stem ends in a consonant, you add ~는다 to the stem:
a. 먹다 = 먹는다 = to eat (먹 + 는다)
b. 닫다 = 닫는다 = to close (닫 + 는다)
2) When the last syllable of the stem ends in a vowel, you add ~ㄴ to the last
syllable followed by 다

a. 배우다 = 배운다 = to learn (배우 + ㄴ다)

b. 이해하다 = 이해한다 = to understand (이해하 + ㄴ다)

c. 가다 = 간다 = to go (가 + ㄴ다)

Past Tense
Before you learn this, you need to know something important. From now on, there will be thousands of other times when you will need to follow this same rule. Usually, when you add something to a verb/adjective, it has to be done in the following fashion :

- If the last vowel in a stem is ㅏ or ㅗ (except 하) you add 아 PLUS whatever else you are adding.

- If the last vowel in a stem is anything but ㅏ or ㅗ you add 어 PLUS whatever you are adding.

For conjugating in the past tense, you need to add 았다 or 었다 to the stem of a word. So, 았다 is added to words with the last vowel being ㅗ or ㅏ and 었다 is added to words with the last vowel being anything but ㅏ or ㅗ.

For example:
저는 먹다 = I eat
The last vowel in the stem is ㅓ. This is not ㅏ or ㅗ. So, we add 었다 to the stem: 저는 먹었다 = I ate (먹 + 었다)
저는 문을 닫다 = I close the door
The last vowel in the stem is ㅏ.

So we add 았다 to the stem:
저는 문을 닫았다 = I closed the door
(닫 + 았다)

저는 창문을 열다 = I open the window

The last vowel in the stem is ㅕ. This is not ㅏ or ㅗ. So we add 었다 to the stem:
저는 창문을 열었다 = I opened the window (열 + 었다)

What makes this complicated (at first) is that for verbs that have a last syllable that end in a vowel, the 았다/었다 gets merged to the actual stem itself. This is how 아 and 어 merge with syllables ending in a vowel:

아 + 아 = 아 (example: 가 + 았다 = 갔다)
오 + 아 = 와 (example: 오+ 았다 = 왔다)
우 + 어 = 워 (example: 배우+ 었다 = 배웠다)
이 + 어 = 여 (example: 끼+ 었다 = 꼈다)
어 + 어 = 어 (example: 나서 + 었다 = 나섰다)
여 + 어 = 여 (example: 켜다 = 켰다)