How to say “I/me”
You probably noticed by now, but there are two ways to say “I/me” in Korean. One of them is considered polite, and the other one is considered casual.
저 is considered polite
나 is considered casual
In addition, when you add the subject marker particle 가 to 저 or 나 (to identify that “I” is the subject of a part of a sentence), 저 changes to “제” and 나 changes to “내”
저는 and 나는 = used when “I” is the subject of the main part of the sentence
제가 and 내가 = used when “I” is the subject of a part of a sentence which is not the main part. For example:
When I came home, my mother made a hamburger.
“I” is only the subject of the part of the sentence which is indicating the time that your mother made a hamburger. “My mother” is the subject of the entire sentence. In cases like this, you would used 제가/내가 to represent “I.”
I would show you an example of the sentence above, but the grammar is way to complex for you right now. For now, simply understand that 저 changes to 제, and 나 changes to 내 when 이/가 are attached.
You can use the same word (“저” or “나” depending on the context) to say “me.” You probably don’t realize this, but “me” is used in English when it is the object (not the subject) of a sentence. For example, you can’t say:
Me like hamburgers (although you would understand that sentence).
However, when placed as the object of a sentence “me” should be used in English.
For example:
He likes me
In Korean, 저/나 is used for both “I” or “me.”
How to say “you”
You may have noticed that I still haven’t taught you one of those most common words in the English language. I know this sounds weird, but the word ‘you’ is not said very often in Korean. Korean people get around saying the word ‘you’ through a number of ways:
* Most of the time, you use somebody’s (usually job) position when referring to them or talking about them. For example, boss (부장님), principal (교장선생님), vice principal (교감선생님), Mr. Name (for a teacher) (Name선생님), customer (고객님), guest (손님), 회장님/사장님 (president/CEO of a company).
* It is very common in Korean to refer to people that you are close with as your own family member. For example, 오빠 means “older brother” (when you are a woman). But even if somebody is not your older brother, you can call him ‘오빠’ if you are close to him.
* You can usually call any woman or man that looks very old “grandmother” and “grandfather” (할머니/할아버지). But other than that, you don’t really call somebody part of your family unless you are close with that person.
* You can generally call any strange man or woman that you don’t know ‘아저씨’ (man) and ‘아주머니’ (woman).
* If somebody is younger than you, you can use the word “you” which is: 너.
* You can also use the word “당신” which means “you.” You may use this word when talking to anybody, but Korean people hardly ever use it. Most people that say ‘당신’ are foreigners and only do so because they are so used to saying “you” in a sentence.
Basic Conjugation: Past, Present, Future
As I have mentioned 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!).
