conjugation confusion

[Bouks]

I was trying to conjugate the verb "살다", and got stuck when I did past tense.

I saw it written as "살았어요" (sarassEOyo), in lesson notes. But I am confused as to why it isn't "살았아요" (sarassAyo). If I try to apply the rules given to me, it seems like it should be:

stem 살 + past tense 았 + conjugation influenced by the stem's vowel, which is 아요. What is my misunderstanding? I'd appreciate seeing some examples of similarly structured verbs as well.

[hyunwoo]

Bouks, good question! 좋은 질문이에요!

What you already know as the rule is adding 아/어/여 to the verb stem in order to c onjugate it into a tense or voice, but this -어 is a fixed suffix that comes at the end of the past tense conjugation.

So,

살다 (to live) - 살아 (I live) - 살았어 (i lived)
먹다 (to eat) - 먹어 (I eat) - 먹었어 (I ate)
보다 (to see) - 봐 (I see) - 봤어 (I saw)
풀다 (to solve) - 풀어 (I solved) - 풀었어 (I solved)

I hope this helps! 도움이 되길 바래요!

[Bouks]

Ah, ok! -어 never morphs when after the past tense indicator. Sometimes I overthink these things. 알았어요! 고맙습니다

[hyunwoo]

맞아요 ^^

잘 썼어요!!

화이팅!