Your first two sentences¶

To throw you into the deep end of the pool to start, here are your two hello world sentences:

Our goal is to understand how you could make these sentences if you had the following four dictionary entries:

• 세희 = Sehee (a Korean given name)
• 고양이 = cat
• 사랑하다 = to love
• 폭신하다 = to be soft, spongy, pillowy

Word order¶

Korean is a SOV language. You write the subject first, the object (if any), and finally the verb at the end.

Case markers on nouns¶

Korean has case markers. The rule is that, if the word ends with a consonant or vowel (respectively):

• For a subject, you attach 이/가.
• For an object, you attach 을/를.

So for example, 고양이 ends with a vowel, so to add a subject marker you write 고양이가. (We could also use a topic marker rather than a subject marker here, but I'll get to that later.)

Conjugation of verbs by formality level¶

Finally, as I said earlier, every verb and adjective must be conjugated from its dictionary form.

One of the most iconic parts of Korean grammar is that there are several different formality levels: the conjugation you pick depends on who you're speaking to. For this text we'll cover four levels of formality; the names in English are different from book to book, so we'll write the Korean name too.

In general, if you're not sure which level to use, use polite. (Most beginner courses will start you with 해요체, for example.)

So how does this conjugation work? We'll first explain how it works for -하다 verbs and adjectives (the easiest case); the general rules are covered next section. To conjugate a -하다 word, one replaces 하다 via the following chart:

(Diary is the only level which treats adjectives and verbs differently.)

Putting it all together¶

For the first sentence, if we were going with polite form, say:

• The subject is 고양이, which ends in a vowel, so it becomes 고양이가.
• The adjective 폭신하다 in polite form is 폭신해요.

For the second sentence, again in polite form:

• The subject is 세희, which ends in a vowel, so it becomes 세희가.
• The object is 고양이, which ends in a vowel, so it becomes 고양이를.
• The verb 사랑하다 in polite form is 사랑해요.

And that's it! Here they are in all the other levels, too: