The four pre-final endings¶

We saw earlier that one can insert -았/었- into a verb to make it past tense. This is one example of a pre-final ending (선어말어미), which sits between the stem of the verb and the ending.

Most Korean grammatical categories are quite large. Pre-final endings are a rare exception: there are only four productive endings still commonly used¹ and we can cover them all right now.

In the case that multiple pre-final endings are used, use them exactly in the order below.² If you happen to be conjugating a verb in present-tense diary form, the ㄴ/는 can only be combined with (으)시 and goes after it.

1. Subject honorific (-(으)시-)¶

This is the first 으-ending we alluded to in the conjugation section; there are many more such endings to come all with this pattern. We saw in First Principles that we conjugate the ending of a verb by formality level. This politeness is based on who the speaker and listener of the sentence are. There is a further way in which you show respect in Korean: If the subject of the verb deserves deference (e.g. parent or boss), then you must add -시- after a vowel and -으시- after a consonant. (You do not respect yourself: never use -(으)시- for your own actions.)

Again, to stress, this is based on the grammatical subject. So if I am telling my close friend about my boss, I might say

The sentence is casual because I'm talking to my friend, but the boss is superior, so -(으)시- applies. The chain goes 바쁘다 → 바쁘시다 → 바쁘셔.

Common case: if you are asking a question to someone respected about them, or giving a command in polite or formal levels, then it follows that the subject is the listener and thus deserves respect. So we should also use -(으)시- here. When used with the polite form, there is one additional important note:

If you encounter (으)시 + 어요 = (으)셔요 from the polite ending, it changes to (으)세요 instead.

That is, 셔요 and 세요 are equivalent and the latter is preferred (though on rare occasions you can still see 셔요). For example:

The first example is the famous one derived from 안녕하다 ("to be peaceful"); it is the set phrase for "hello" usually taught in Korean lesson 1. In the final example, the ㄹ rule applies: 살다 → 사시다 → 사세요.

A few verbs, like 자다 → 주무시다 ("to sleep") have special honorific forms.

2. Past tense (-ㅆ/았/었-) and past-past tense (-ㅆ/았/었었-)¶

Simple past tense was covered in First Principles in the past tense section.

There's also past-past tense (also called remote past or doubled past), which roughly means "used to happen in the past but now finished". (This is not the same as the English past perfect "had gone".) In Korean, past-past is achieved by adding an extra 었 compared to past tense, like so:

This is particularly useful in cases where the past tense of a verb might otherwise be interpreted as talking about a current state, such as the following example:

3. Irrealis (-겠-)¶

This one is sometimes called "future tense" instead, but this will probably give you the wrong instincts. I deliberately used the jargon term "irrealis" that you've never heard of in order to prevent it from being confused with future tense. For what English speakers call "future tense", the pattern ㄹ 것이다 is more common, discussed later.

Roughly, the irrealis -겠- marks something that isn't (yet) an established fact. In more polite or formal settings, this can be used for the speaker's intentions, questions about the listener's intentions, or formal announcements of what is about to happen. For your own intentions, it's generally too stiff for casual settings.

However, it can also be a guess or inference, as in the next two examples (note the second example 갔겠어요 is actually past tense!).

겠 is also used in some set phrases. Some examples are 알겠습니다 ("Understood"), 모르겠어요 (a less blunt "I don't know" than 몰라요), and 처음 뵙겠습니다 ("Nice to meet you", lit. "I'll meet you for the first time"). One fun set phrase is X 죽겠어, which literally means "I'm dying of X-ing". Here the phrase X is casual form:

4. Retrospective (-더-)¶

The retrospective -더- is a prefinal ending that HTSK describes as "recalling a fact from experience". It shows up in many endings we'll describe later; for now, we only show its diary form, where 더 is followed by 라 rather than 다, giving -더라.