Learn the difference between the Korean particles e and eseo
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Intro |
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| Michael: What is the difference between the Korean particles |
| Kyejin: 은/는 (eun/neun) |
| Michael: and |
| Kyejin: 이/가 (i/ga)? |
| Michael: And how do you know which one to use? |
| At KoreanClass101.com, we hear these questions often. |
| Eugene Eom is talking to his friend Ga-eun Gim, when he asks about her place of origin, |
| "Where is your hometown, Ga-eun?" |
| 엄 유진: 가은이는 고향이 어디야? (Gaeunineun gohyangi eodiya?) |
| Dialogue |
| Eugene Eom: 가은이는 고향이 어디야? (Gaeunineun gohyangi eodiya?) |
| Ga-eun Gim: 내 고향은 서울이야. (Nae gohyangeun Seouriya.) |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Eugene Eom: 가은이는 고향이 어디야? (Gaeunineun gohyangi eodiya?) |
| Michael: "Where is your hometown, Ga-eun?" |
| Ga-eun Gim: 내 고향은 서울이야. (Nae gohyangeun Seouriya.) |
| Michael: "My hometown is Seoul." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: A lot of students ask us “How come there are so many different particles in Korean?” and, it’s true, there are numerous particles in Korean. And they do get confusing. So, in this lesson, we are going to talk about two types of particles that are widely used but also commonly confused for one another. The first set is |
| Kyejin: 이/가 (i/ga). |
| Michael: Usually, these particles are attached to the end of a noun, pronoun, or numeral to give the grammatical insight that it’s the subject of a sentence, and, in such a case, they’re called subject marking particles. But you might be wondering why there are two particles in a set, and how they are used differently. Well, it’s simple; it has to do with the word it’s attached to. If the previous word ends in a consonant, then we use |
| Kyejin: 이 (i), |
| Michael: and, for words ending in a vowel, we use |
| Kyejin: 가 (ga). |
| Michael: This rule is applied to the other type of particle we’ll discuss in this lesson, |
| Kyejin: 은/는 (eun/neun). |
| Michael: This set of particles is commonly used to indicate the topic, and, for such usages, we’ll call them topic marking particles. When the previous word ends in a consonant, we place |
| Kyejin: 은 (eun), |
| Michael: and when it ends in a vowel, we place |
| Kyejin: 는 (neun). |
| Michael: Then why are these two types of particles so confusing? One major reason is that they both appear quite often connected to subjects. Then, what’s the difference between the two? The first set |
| Kyejin: 이/가 (i/ga) |
| Michael: are commonly used as subject marking particles, thus are mostly found in subjects, whereas |
| Kyejin: 은/는 (eun/neun) |
| Michael: can be used elsewhere, too, like in objects and adverbs. But when these particles are connected to subjects, they add emphasis on what’s being told about the subject; whether he/she is a student, teacher, tall, or short, like: |
| Kyejin: 저는 학생이에요. 저는 선생님이에요. (Jeoneun haksaengieyo. Jeoneun seonsaengnimieyo.) |
| Michael: “I AM a STUDENT.” “I AM a TEACHER.” On the other hand, |
| Kyejin: 이/가 (i/ga) |
| Michael: emphasize the subject itself, for example, telling WHO the teacher is; whether it’s HE or SHE, like: |
| Kyejin: 제가 선생님이에요. 저 사람이 선생님이에요. (Jega seonsaengnimieyo. Jeo sarami seonsaengnimieyo.) |
| Michael: “I AM the teacher.” “THAT PERSON is the teacher.” All of this information coming at once may sound overwhelming, but don’t worry! We are going to talk about it more along with our dialogue and some examples. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: Let’s take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Eugene Eom says: "Where is your hometown, Ga-eun?" |
| Kyejin: 가은이는 고향이 어디야? (Gaeunineun gohyangi eodiya?) |
| Michael: Let’s try locating the particles we talked about earlier: |
| Kyejin: 은/는, 이/가 (eun/nean, i/ga). |
| Michael: Where in the sentence can we find those particles? |
| Yes, from the first and the second phrases, |
| Soeyon: 가은이는, 고향이 (Gaeunineun, gohyangi) |
| Michael: meaning “Gaeun”, “hometown.” Which particle was used in the first phrase, |
| Kyejin: 가은이는 (gaeunineun)? |
| Michael: Yes, it’s the topic marking particle |
| Kyejin: 는 (neun), |
| Michael: added to “Gaeun.” Eugene raised “Gaeun” as the topic of this sentence, so we know the rest of the sentence will have to do with “Gaeun.” Well, if that’s the case, why is there an additional word, |
| Kyejin: 이 (i), |
| Michael: between the name, “Gaeun”, and the topic marking particle? Is this a subject marking particle? The answer is no; it’s a suffix. When addressing someone by their first name in Korean that ends with a consonant, we add this suffix between the name and the particle, so that the phrase would have a better tone. We will learn about suffixes in a different lesson, so stay tuned! Next is the phrase |
| Kyejin: 고향이 (gohyangi). |
| Michael: Which particle was used here? |
| Yes, it’s the subject marking particle |
| Kyejin: 이 (i), |
| Michael: attached to the word meaning “hometown”, |
| Kyejin: 고향 (gohyang), |
| Michael: thus showing that “hometown” is the subject of the topic. Then comes the last part of the sentence, |
| Kyejin: 어디야? (eodiya?) |
| Michael: meaning “where?” So the full sentence literally means, “Gaeun hometown where?” And it can be put as “Where is your hometown, Gaeun?” in English. |
| [Recall 2] |
| Michael: Now let’s take a look at our second sentence. |
| Do you remember how Ga-eun Gim says: "My hometown is Seoul?" |
| Kyejin: 내 고향은 서울이야. (Nae gohyangeun Seouriya.) |
| Kyejin: 내 고향은 (Nae gohyangeun) |
| Michael: means, “My hometown…”, and here, there is a [topic marking particle]. Could you point it out? |
| Yes, it’s |
| Kyejin: 은 (eun), |
| Michael: after the word for “hometown” |
| Kyejin: 고향 (gohyang). |
| Michael: So we can catch that the topic of this sentence is about Gaeun’s “hometown.” Afterward, she tells Eugene that Seoul is where she’s from. Then, another question might come to our heads. Both sentences in the dialogue contain the word “hometown,” but why are they paired with different types of particles, one with a subject marking particle and the other with a topic marking particle? Would it be wrong to switch the two, like: |
| Kyejin: 가은이는 고향은 어디야? (Gaeunineun gohyangi eodiya?) |
| Kyejin: 내 고향이 서울이야. (Nae gohyangeun Seouriya.) |
| Michael: There’s no grammatical error in each sentence. However, it sounds a bit odd when the two sentences are put together in a dialogue. How come? That’s because the subject marking particles |
| Kyejin: 이/가 (i/ga) |
| Michael: are generally used when introducing a new piece of information in the conversation. In this setting, Eugene and Gaeun haven’t talked about Gaeun’s hometown before, so it sounds more natural to use the subject marking particle in the first line. On the other hand, topic marking particles |
| Kyejin: 은/는 (eun/neun) |
| Michael: are used when addressing old information, so it’s fitting that Gaeun used the topic marking particle when telling Eugene her hometown in the second line of their conversation. |
| Summary] |
| Michael: We’ve discussed two types of commonly used particles so far |
| Kyejin: 은/는, 이/가 (eun/neun, i/ga) |
| Michael: and their usages. |
| Kyejin: 이/가 (i/ga) |
| Michael: are commonly used as subject marking particles, pointing out the subject of a sentence. |
| Kyejin: 은/는 (eun/neun) |
| Michael: are commonly used to indicate topics of sentences, and we’ve called them topic marking particles. Both of them are frequently found in subjects, thus making the two confusing. However, we learned that |
| Kyejin: 은/는 (eun/neun) |
| Michael: can also be placed where objects or adverbs come, thus their usage is not restricted to subjects only. But, when they’re placed in subjects, they emphasize the information told about the subject. Meanwhile, subject marking particles |
| Kyejin: 이/가 (i/ga) |
| Michael: place weight on the subject itself. Also, subject marking particles are normally used when introducing new information, whereas topic marking particles |
| Kyejin: 은/는 (eun/neun) |
| Michael: are more likely to be used in the latter parts, continuing conversation based on old information. Lastly, we place |
| Kyejin: 이, 은 (i, eun) |
| Michael: if the previous word ends in a consonant, and |
| Kyejin: 가, 는 (ga, neun) |
| Michael: when the previous word ends in a vowel. |
| Now, let’s look at some examples. Our first example is “I am a teacher.” |
| Kyejin: 저는 선생님이에요. 제가 선생님이에요. (Jeoneun seonsaengnimieyo. Jega seonsaengnimieyo.) |
| Michael: The first sentence contains the topic marking particle which indicates that the speaker “I” will be the topic of the sentence. The second sentence contains the subject marking particle indicating that “I” is the subject of the sentence. Both phrases |
| Kyejin: 저는, 제가 (jeoneun, jega) |
| Michael: are subjects, but they are put together with different particles. In turn, the focus of the sentences varies from one to another. The first sentence written with a topic marking particle focuses on the subject being A TEACHER. Meanwhile, the second sentence highlights the subject “I”, so it conveys that nobody else but the person “I” is the teacher. |
| There is also another difference we notice between the two particles; it’s the pronoun “I.” With topic marking particles, “I” is written as |
| Kyejin: 나, 나는/ 저, 저는; 저는 선생님이에요. (na, naneun/ jeo, jeoneun; Jeoneun seonsaengnimieyo.) |
| Michael: but, with subject marking particles, it’s written as |
| Kyejin: 내, 내가/ 제, 제가; 제가 선생님이에요. (nae, naega/ je, jega; Jega seonsaengnimieyo.) |
| Michael: You’ve got to make sure you match the right pronoun “I”! And keep in mind that |
| Kyejin: 는/가 (neun/ga) |
| Michael: are used because the pronoun “I” ends in vowels in Korean. But |
| Kyejin: 은/이 (eun/i) |
| Michael: would have been used if the noun was “uncle” because the Korean word for it ends in a consonant. |
| Kyejin: 삼촌은 선생님이에요. 삼촌이 선생님이에요. (Samchoneun seonsaengnimieyo. Samchoni seonsaengnimieyo.) |
| Michael: “My uncle is a teacher.” |
| Expansion |
| Michael: So far, you have learned about the main functions of this lesson’s particles. But these particles actually have some other usages as well. For example, |
| Kyejin: 은/는 (eun/neun) |
| Michael: are also used to contrast, like |
| Kyejin: 나는 여자고, 너는 남자야. (Naneun yeojago, neoneun namjaya.) |
| Michael: “I am a girl, but you are a boy.” Can you see how the two clauses are put in contrast? |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We’re here to answer them! |
| Kyejin: 안녕히 계세요 (annyeonghi gyeseyo) |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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