Korean Language Guide - PDF

Lear n Korean: LP' s Korean Language Lear ning

By Luke Par k
2013

Korean Language Guide

The following are the complete list of the lessons created so far in this Korean Language Guide.
Welcome
Korean Alphabet
Sentence Order
Par ticles

Topic Particle - /
Identifier Particle - /
Subject Particles - / and /
Additive Particle -
Object Particle - /
Time / Place Particle -

Pronouns

Pronouns (I, You) - , , ,

Pronouns (He, She) - , , ,
Pronouns (He, She) - , ,
Pronouns (They) - , ,
Pronouns- This, It, That

Nouns

Nouns - Present, Past

Nouns - Nominalising
Nouns - Nominalizing Verbs
Nouns - Numbers and Counting

Adjectives

Adjectives - Present, Past

Adjectives - Polite [Present, Past]
Adjectives - Descriptive
Adjectives - Connective

Ver bs

Verbs - Present, Past

Verbs - Polite [Present, Past]
Verbs - Future [Will]
Verbs - Continuous
Verbs - Connective
Verbs - Can
Verbs - Have
Verbs - Want
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Verbs - Descriptive I
Verbs - Descriptive II
Verbs - Speech
Adver bs

Adverbs -

Par ticles

Particles - //
Particles - /
Particles - ,
Particles - [only]

Possessive

Possessive -

Conjunctions

Conjunctions - And
Conjunctions - But [~]
Conjunctions - But [/]
Conjunctions - Because, So [~]
Conjunctions - Because []
Conjunctions - If/Once [~]
Conjunctions - If/Once [~]
Conjunctions - When [~]
Conjunctions - While [~/]
5W1H

Advanced Gr ammar

Comparatives & Superlatives

Imperatives - ,
Have to -
Allowed to -
I like doing - ,
I think - ~ (Opinion)
I think / It seems - (General)
I used to do -
I used to do -
(I learned that) ~
(I found that) - ~
I heard / You said - ~
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There is / I have - /
Special Expressions

Are you doing? - ~ ? [Informal]

Are you doing? - ~ ? [Polite]
Are we doing? - / ?
Go to do - ~
To do something - ~
Try doing -
Of course, I've done it before -
Give the favour of doing -
Would you like to go? - ?
Shall we do something? - ?
It's cold, isn't it? - ?
Let's do it -
Easy to do / Difficult to do - ~ / ~
I know how -
I'm in the habit of - ~ ~
Because I'm - ~
I will go first -

Phr ases

As I was doing - ~

Other Lessons

Addressing people
Pronunciation

Learning the Korean Language for the Fir st Time!

Please refer to Audio Recordings - Introduction, to learn about "WHY" listening to Korean is so
important in learning Korean.
Welcome You All to the Korean Language Guide!
This blog was first created in 2006 as an experiment to help people who would like to learn Korean
language online by providing some basic grammar lessons on Korean.
Over the years, I was able to put up more and more Korean language lessons online, and as of now,
in January 2011, there are more than 70 online Korean lessons in this blog.
The principles in writing these online Korean language lessons have been that I remain intentional
about making them as easy to understand and readily applicable in daily life as I can, and
comprehensive enough to cover major points of the Korean language which includes both
the Wr itten and Spoken forms.
Now, what do I mean by wr itten and spoken forms?
In Korean, the verb endings change depending on whether the language is used in writing or speech.
Note: In Korean grammar, the verbs come at the end of a sentence. For more on the sentence order,
please read Sentence Order.

For example, " " which means "I went to school" is a written form, and "
" is a spoken form.
= I went to school (wr itten form as in writing, books, diary and
newspaper)
= I went to school (spoken form as in conversations, movies and
dramas)

As you can see, the ending of a verb changes from to , both of which mean "went".

Therefore you'd write in one way but speak in a slightly different way. But don't be too alarmed at
the difference, as there are simple patterns to it, and you'll get to learn them along the way.
It is also important to learn the differences in degrees of formalities in the Korean language.
There are three major types in the degrees of formality:
Informal
Polite
Honorific
In expressing the politeness in the speech, Korean differs from English in that the verb endings
change depending on the age and rank of the person being addressed to and the social setting one
finds oneself in. For example, when I'm asked, "Where are you going?" I might answer, "I'm going
to school" in the following ways:
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 - [Informal, to people of the same age as me or younger than me, especially among
close friends]
- [Polite, to people older than me, and in formal social situations]
- [Honorific, this is rarely used in normal conversations. I would say
this type of speaking is only found in very formal settings such as on the news or in the
army.]
You would use the polite form even when the person you're speaking to is of the same age as you or
younger than you if you're not very close to the person and/or you're in a formal social setting. I'd
say it's best to stick to the polite form first and then use the informal form later as you gain more
understanding of the Korean language.
The major mark of the division is probably the age. The polite language is used to people above
one's age and informal language to people equal to and below one's age.
However, generally, the polite language is generally used in many social situations and the informal
language is usually used among close friends.
I am trying to lay out some basics to the language of Korean. However it'd be good at this point to
dive into the lessons and learn them for yourself.
You can start reading the Korean language guide on this website, Learn Korean: LP's Korean
Language Learning, from the top to bottom in the order as it's designed to guide you from the basics
to intermediate and advanced Korean lessons.
Before you go, here is a bit of history of (Hangeul, the Korean alphabet):

Korean is the official language of Korea, both North and South. There are around 78 million people
who speak Korean around the world. [1]
(the Korean alphabet) was invented by Sejong the Great in the 15th century. Before that time,
people used Hanja (the equivalent of the Chinese characters) which was not only difficult to learn
but was also considerably different to the Korean grammar and sentence order. [2]
is a phonetic writing system which means that the words correspond to pronunciation.

The English alphabet is phonetic whereas the Chinese characters are not.
If you learn the English alphabet, you can read an English writing fairly well although you may not
understand the meaning.
Korean is even more phonetic than that of English and many other languages, in that each
consonant and vowel in Korean mostly have only one sound.
For example,
= n
= a (as in car and mama, short sound)

+= [na] (which means "I" as in "I" am Luke)

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