Unit 1

Lesson 12
Introduction
As of now, you have learned a few different Korean particles. The particles you have learned so
far are: /, /, /, and . There are many more particles that you will need to learn
and this lesson will cover a lot of them. In this lesson, you will learn about ~, ~, ~,
~, ~ and ~()! Lets get started!

An Important Note: Eliminating the Subject

One thing that I have yet to tell you is that Korean people often omit the topic/subject of the
sentence especially when the topic/subject is I. Korean people love making their sentences as
short as possible, and this is one additional way of doing it. In most cases, when the
subject/topic can be inferred by the situation, Korean people drop it entirely from the sentence.
For example, instead of saying:
= I didnt eat breakfast
They would say:
= I didnt eat breakfast
Both are perfect sentences and both can be used, but you should be aware that Korean people
often get rid of the subject/topic altogether when speaking. This will be done from time to time
throughout our lessons.

.
Korean Particle ~ and using with a counter
You have probably been asking yourself how can I make something plural? Up to now, I
havent mentioned anything about plural words in Korean. The reason for this is Korean people
rarely distinguish between singular and plural. For example, if I say:


This could mean I bought an apple OR I bought apples. This seems crazy to English speakers,
but this is just how it is done in Korean. In most cases, the context can make it clear if you
bought an apple or if you bought apples. If you really want to make it clear that you bought
one apple, you could say:
= I bought one apple
When dealing with the ambiguity of singular/plural sentences in Korean, you could also use the
word which can replace a number in these examples: / / . When replaces a
number in these cases ( / / ), it has the meaning of some ____. For example,
instead of saying: , you could say:
= I bought SOME apples
More examples (remember that and have the same meaning):
= I bought some pens
= I met some people
= I went to school a few/sometimes (not sometimes)

(remember, acts as an adverb so it doesnt need a particle to be attached to it).

Anyways, back to what I was trying to say earlier. ~ can be attached to a noun to make that
noun plural. However, adding ~ to a noun that is not referring to a person is usually
unnatural. Therefore, it would be unnatural to say something like this:

Instead, ~ is usually only attached to the word person () or other words with the
meaning of people (for example: actors, workers, doctors, etc).
= doctors have a lot of money
= The teacher will meet the students tomorrow
* = actors usually dont like their movies

*By adding the possessive particle to (them) it becomes (their)

Korean Particle ~ (only)

The particle ~ is very common and has the meaning of only. It can be attached directly to
the end of a noun to express only (that noun). For example:

 = I only drink water

It can be attached to the subject or the object of a sentence, and in each case it replaces the
particle that would normally be attached there (~/ or ~/) or For example:
= Only I like that girl
= I only like that girl
= Only I bought apples
= I only bought apples
You could also stress that you only bought one apple (or any other number of things) by
placing ~ on a counter:
= I only bought 1 apple
= I only have two cars
= I only met one friend
I said it once before in Lesson 3, but it is something that learners of Korean often forget: When
a verb ends in , the part before is usually a noun form of that verb. The examples I
gave before were:
= succeed
= success
= speak
= speech/words
= achieve
= achievement
With these verbs, the part before can be separated from to make a noun form of that
verb. Then, , meaning do can act on that noun (I do study = I study). It is hard to
explain, but look at the following example:
= I studied
= I studied
Those two mean exactly the same thing, even though in the second example, is used as a
stand-alone noun. But why is all of this important? It is important because now you can treat
as a regular noun, which means you can attach to it:

 = I only studied
= Yesterday, I only worked
Note that just because a word ends in , doesnt mean you can do this. For example, many
adjectives end in (for example: : happy), but this:
= I am only happy doesnt really make a lot of sense
Also, many verbs dont end in and just end in (for example: , , ). The way
that you can change those verbs into a form that allows ~ to be attached will be discussed
in Lesson 29.
The examples above show ~ attached to nouns, but really it can be attached to a wide variety
of things including grammatical principles and other particles, which well get in to after a few
more lessons on Korean basics.
When ~ gets attached to more complicated things, it usually doesnt replace something, but
overlaps it. What I mean is, when ~ is attached to the subject or object, ~/ or ~/ get
eliminated. However, when ~ is attached to something else, everything usually stays in place.
Ill show now how it can be attached to the ~ particle weve covered, and follow up in later
lessons with other particles.
= We only went to school
= The students are only in their classrooms
= I exercise only at night
= I drink coffee only during the day
= I loved her only at that time

When using , ~ is often omitted because it can be assumed.

Korean Particle ~
Foreign learners of Korean are often very confused as to when they should use ~ instead of
~, as they both denote places in Korean sentences. ~ is used to denote the location in
which the subject is doing something in.
For example:
= I will study at school
= I saw my friend at the hospital

 = I will meet my husband at the park

= I learned Korean in Korea
In order to help you understand the purpose of ~, I would like to make a distinction
between ~ and ~. As I said, ~ is used to indicate the location in which the subject is
doing something.
This does not mean the location that he/she is going to
This does not mean the location that he/she looking at
This does not mean the location that he/she places something on
This does not mean the location that he/she places something in
All of the locations from those examples above would require the particle ~ to denote the
location.
~, on the other hand refers the location in which the subject the acting agent of the
sentence is in when actually doing the action. Lets look at the following example:

In this sentence, where is the subject () when doing the action ()? ~ is not used in this
sentence, so it is unknown as to where the subject was when he/she saw the sign. It might be
known from context, but this specific sentence is not describing it. Therefore, the person is
saying that he/she saw the sign on the building as if he/she was walking by and saw the sign
attached to the building in some way. The action did not occur at/on/in the building, its just
that the location in which he/she was looking at.
Conversely, look at this sentence:

In this sentence, where is the subject () when doing this action ()? ~ is attached to
. Therefore, the subject was in the building and saw the sign.
Another example:

In this sentence, where is the subject () when doing the action ()? ~ is not used in this
sentence, so it is unknown as to where the subject was when he/she put the bottle on the table.
It might be known from context, but this specific sentence is not describing it. Therefore, the
person is saying that he/she put the bottle on the table.

Conversely, look at this sentence:

This sentence is nonsense. It is indicating that, the action actually occurred on/in the table. That
is, the subject somehow within the table placed the bottle somewhere. But the sentence is so
nonsensical that it is not even indicating where the bottle is placed. It could translate to
something like (While I was) in the table, I placed the bottle. Dont get too hung up on that
translation because its hard to translate a sentence that doesnt make sense.
However, because ~ can be used to indicate where the subject is acting, and because ~
can be used to in this sentence to indicate where the bottle is placed, both ~ and ~ can
be used in the same sentence. For example:
= I placed the bottle on the table in the room
This is the same reason that the particle ~ is placed on the location in which a person is
going. For example, if I said something like this:

(This sentence is correct, but it is stating that the person left from Korea because the action of
going () is occurring at/in Korea). This function is talked about a little bit later.
Instead, in order to indicate the place in which you are going (and, therefore, not currently in/at),
you must use ~. For example:
= I will go to Korea

~ can also be attached to a location where an adjective occurs. The word occurs is a bad
way to describe this (because adjectives dont really occur, but I cant think of a better word.
Just like how a verb can be used with a subject:
= I slept
and a location can be used in this sentence to indicate where that action occurred:

 = I slept at home
In that same sense, adjectives can be used with a subject:
= Fruit is expensive
and a location can be used in this sentence to indicate where that adjective occurs:
= Fruit is expensive in Korea
Here are some other examples:
= I was cold at school
= High school is difficult in Korea
= Green Tea is famous in Korea
I dont want to provide a ton of examples for this because in order to make perfectly natural
sentences, it requires the use of other, more complicated grammar that you havent been
introduced to yet. For now, try to understand this specific function of ~ and how it can be
used to indicate where a verb or adjective occurs.
Also note that when you indicate where something is by using , you should use ~ instead
of ~. For example:
= Im at home
= Im in the car

The other main usage of ~ has the general meaning of from. In its most basic sense, it
can be used to indicate the place in which the subject is departing from. This is the usage I
mentioned earlier. For example:
= I will go from Korea
= The next bus will depart from that station
This same usage can be applied to more complicated scenarios that are similar to departing.
For example:
When you are getting off of something (bus/train):
= I will get off at (from) Seoul station

When something/someone is coming/going/being taken out of something:

= the student came out of the classroom
You can also use this to indicate the country (or any other place, for that matter) that you come
from. In English, we say I come from Canada/Im from Canada but in Korean the past tense of
come must be used:
= I come from Canada
I dont want to go on a rant here, but one of the things that bugs me is the textbooks that
teach ___ in the first or second lesson before any of the grammar concepts
within the sentence have been taught. For example, when I first started learning Korean, I had a
textbook that taught me ____ on the very first page. Without explaining why I
was using instead of , why I was using , what meant, what meant, how/why
changes to , how/why changes to . But I digress
It is also important to know that when ~ is added to the words // (here, there,
there), it is common to write/say:
instead of
instead of
instead of
In addition to the examples provided, there are more ways in which ~ can be used to mean
from. Below is a sneak preview of more ways ~ can be used to mean from, but Ive used
some grammar forms not yet introduced. Making a mental note of these types of sentences
might help you when you come across similar sentences later.
= I live far from school
1 10 = Count from 1 to 10
= They chose me from many candidates
1 2 = Please come from 1:00 to 2:00
10 5 = Subtract 5 from 10
As you can see, from (in English) has many usages as well. When a word has a lot of meanings
in Korean and the corresponding English word also has a lot of meanings mastering the
usage can be challenging, but also rewarding when it all comes together.

Korean Particles ~ and ~

Two more important Korean particles you need to know are ~ and ~.
~ can be used in sentences with or without ~ to have the meaning of to/until a
place/time. For example:
3 = I will wait until 3:00
= I liked that girl until now
5 = I will work at that company until May
= I hadnt eaten Kimchi until that time
= Today, I read up to here in this book
= I ran until (I reached) the Han River
~ is a particle that is often confused with ~ because both can translate to from and
have seemingly overlapping usages. You learned earlier that one usage of ~ is to indicate
the location from which an action is departing. For example:
= We will depart from home
~ is very similar, but is specifically identifying the place (or time) in which
something starts from. If we look at this sentence:
= I will depart from Incheon and go to (until) Seoul
The particle ~ identifies that the person departed from . In theory, this could also be
seen as the starting point. Therefore, this sentence could also be written as:
= I will go from Incheon to Seoul
These two sentences (despite the slight nuance of departing and starting) are essentially the
same. In both cases, the subject is going from Incheon to Seoul. They can both be seen as
correct, but most Koreans would rather use ~ when talking about the location in which
something starts/departs.
For example, I showed these two sentences to a Korean person and asked him to explain the
difference:
= The next bus will leave from that stop

He said: The first one sounds more natural. The second one sounds as if the place the bus is
leaving from is the bus garage like the absolute starting point of the bus. In most situations, it
would be most natural to say the first sentence.
Instead, ~ is commonly attached to a time to indicate when something starts. For example:
= I have been sick since (from) yesterday
= Im going to study Korean from tomorrow
= From next year, we will be living in Seoul
3 = I will be at school from 3:00
= I have been learning Korean since last year
It is very common to see ~ used in the same sentence as ~. Here, ~ indicates the
starting point and ~ indicates the end point. For example:
= From morning to night I only studied
1 8 = I will be in Canada from the 1st to the 8th
It is common to see attached to to translate to something like from the start or
from the beginning. For example:
= They didnt like me from the start
= We will start that job/task from the beginning
When used to say from start to finish, the word is often used to mean finish. For
example:
= I didnt know that situation from start to finish
= I reviewed that from start to finish
= I read that book from start to finish

Korean Particle ~()

The Korean particle ~() can be added to nouns with a few different meanings. One of the
main meanings is to indicate with what tool/device/method/material something is carried out.
The English equivalent varies depending on the usage:
Write with a pen
Go to the store by car

Go to school on foot
Make a house out of wood
This meaning of ~() can be used in so many situations it would be impossible to list them
all. As you get comfortable with the basic examples of this usage, you will slowly be able to
grasp when it should be used in all situations.
~ is added to words ending in a vowel, whereas ~ is added to words ending in a
consonant. ~ is also added to words ending in . The only reason for this difference is for
ease of pronunciation. If you say there is a split second where your tongue cannot go
directly from to ~ so it is changed to .
= I built our house out of wood
= I will go to Je-ju by boat
= I built that with my hands

In this same respect, ~() can be used to indicate the language in which something is spoken
in. Here, just like in some of the examples above, the language acts as the tool in which
something was communicated. For example:
= I said that sentence (using) in Korean
= I will say that (using) in English

It is also used to indicate what you ate for a specific meal:

= I ate rice for breakfast
= I usually only ate fruit for lunch

If somebody does an action in line with a bunch of other people, you can use ~() to
indicate the order something is done by attaching it to a number + . For example:
= I did that second (I was the second person to do that)
= I came to school second (I was the second person to come to

school)
= I will go (do it) first

The other main meaning of ~() is to indicate the direction that something is happening in.
This sometimes has the same meaning as .For example:
= I will go in the direction of home (simply I will go home), which would
be the same as:
= I will go home
~() is often added after ~ to make ~. ~ can be added after some nouns and
some direction words (above/below/East/West/etc) to mean the direction of ___.
= that way/direction
= upper direction
= the direction of the people, etc..
To make sentences like:
= My friend went that way
= Students walk towards/in the direction of their class
Notice the difference between these two:
= I ran inside the house
= I ran inside the house
In the first example, you are running into the house/in the direction of inside the house. In the
second example, you are running inside the house.
Thats it for this lesson! I wanted to cover a few more particles, but this lesson already has way
too much in it! In the next lesson, I will introduce you to more of these common particles. Until
then, make sure you review this lesson before you move on!