Learn whether 요 (yo) makes everything more polite in Korean
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| Hi everybody! Jae here. Welcome to Ask a Teacher, where I’ll answer some of your most common Korean questions. |
| The question for this lesson is… |
| Does 요[yo] make everything more polite in Korean? |
| The short answer is yes. With the particle 요 [yo], you can make words sound more polite. Then how can we make a sentence ending with 요 [yo]? Here are some rules. |
| First, we’ll do a very simple one. When the verb-stem ends in a vowel like the 가 [ga] in 가다 [gada], meaning "to go,” you can simply replace 다 [da] with 요 [yo]. We don't need any additional particles. |
| However, when the verb-stem ends in a consonant, like 놀 [nol] in 놀다 [nolda] meaning "to play.” we need the extra vowel 아 [a] before 요 [yo] to say 놀아요. [norayo]. |
| But that's not the end. In Korean, we have some vowels called “negative vowels,” for example, ㅓ [eo], ㅜ [wu] and ㅡ [eu] When the last vowel of the word is a negative one, you will need to use 어 [eo] instead of 아 [a]. |
| Let’s do an example so you can see for yourself. |
| 먹 [meok] is the verb-stem of the verb 먹다 [meokda] meaning "to eat." First, the verb-stem ends in a consonant, so you might think you need to add 아 [a] and say 먹아요 [meogayo] to make it polite. But the last vowel of the verb-stem is ㅓ [eo] which is negative, so you need to say 먹어요 [meogeoyo] using 어 [eo]. |
| Sounds complicated, right? Don’t worry. As you hear more verbs with 요 [yo] particles, it will come more naturally to you. |
| Let’s do one more example, because we have one final rule for using the particle 요 [yo]. |
| A lot of Korean verbs are made with 하다 [hada] verb meaning “to do.” For example, 공부하다. [gongbuhada] meaning "to study.” When you want to make a 하다 [hada] verb polite, just replace 하다 [hada] with 해요 [haeyo]. So 공부하다 [gongbuhada] becomes 공부해요 [gongbuhaeyo]. |
| Since there are so many 하다[hada] verbs in Korean, you can practice with the 하다[hada] verbs first. Then, you only have two more conjugation rules to master. |
| How was this lesson? Pretty interesting, right? |
| Please leave any more questions in the comments below and I’ll try to answer them! |
| See you next time. 다음 시간에 만나요. (Daeum-sigane mannayo.) |
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