LEARN KOREAN (한국어) [GRAMMAR] #1

MORE ABOUT 좋다/싫다 TO 좋아하다/싫어하다

I have told you a few times that in most words ending in 하다, you can remove the ~하다 and the remaining word then becomes a noun of that verb. For example:

말 - speech/words/the thing that you say
말하다 - to speak

주문 - an order
주문하다 - to order

결혼 - marriage
결혼하다 - to marry

존경 - respect
존경하다 - to respect

This cannot be done with 좋아하다 and 싫어하다. That is:

좋아 is not a noun that means "likeness" (or whatever), and
싫어 is not a noun that means "dis-likeness "(or whatever)

Note, however that 좋아 and 싫어 can be found in sentences, but only as conjugated forms of 좋다/싫다 and not as the noun form of 좋아하다 and 싫어하다. You learned that 좋다 and 싫다 are adjectives. As adjectives, they can describe an upcoming noun or predicate a sentence. For example:

저는 좋은 김치를 먹었어요 - I ate good kimchi
김치는 좋아요 - Kimchi is good

Just a quick note. Only in rare cases would you actually say '김치는 좋아요.' In most cases if you wanted to describe 김치 by saying it was good, you would use the word 맛있다 instead. You would only really use this sentence if you/somebody was talking about something bad (like maybe something bad for your health), and then you could say "... is bad, but Kimchi is good." Nonetheless, it is grammatically correct, and I am specifically using this sentence to make a point that you will understand later.

좋아하다 is made by adding ~아/어하다 to the stem of 좋다. This changes 좋다 from an adjective (good) to a verb (to like). Likewise,

싫어하다 is made by adding ~아/어하다 to the stem of 싫다. This changes 싫다 from an adjective (not good) to a verb (to dislike).

It would be good to note that you can add ~아/어하다 with some other adjectives as well. 좋다 and 싫다 are the most common (and the most important) to worry about right now, but other common examples are:

부끄럽다 - shy (this is an adjective)
부끄러워하다 - shy (this is a verb)

부럽다 - envious (this is an adjective)
부러워하다 - envious (this is a verb)

Aside from knowing that one is a verb and one is an adjective, you don't need to worry about these other words right now. I talk more about this concept and how they are used differently, but not until much later. For now, let's just focus on 좋아하다 and 싫어하다.

As a verb, 좋아하다 can be used to indicate that one "likes" something. For example:

김치는 좋아요 - Kimchi is good
저는 김치를 좋아해요 - I like Kimchi

Likewise, 싫어하다 can be used to indicate that one "dislikes" something. For example:

김치는 싫어요 - Kimchi is bad/not good
저는 김치를 싫어해요 - I don't like Kimchi

However, the use of "좋다" and "싫다" in these sentences is commonly used to say:

김치가 좋아요 - I like Kimchi, and
김치가 싫어요 - I don't like Kimchi

Or, other examples:

학교가 좋아요 - I like school
학교가 싫어요 - I don't like school

맥주가 좋아요 - I like beer
맥주가 싫어요 - I don't like beer