Nouns: 음식 = food Verbs:

케이크 = cake 먹다 = to eat 가다

공항 = airport = to go
병원 = hospital 만나다 = to meet
공원 = park 닫다 = to close 열
한국어 = Korean (language) 다 = to open
머리 = head 원하다 = to want
다리 = leg (an object) 만들다
손가락 = finger = to make
귀 = ear 하다 = to do 말하
팔 = arm 다 = to speak
눈 = eye 이해하다 = to
입 = mouth understand 좋아하
배 = stomach 다 = to like
버스 = bus
Adjectives:
배 = boat
크다 = to be big 작
우리 = we/us
다 = to be small
Adverbs: 새롭다 = to be new
아주 = very 낡다 = to be old
(not age)
매우 = very
비싸다 = to be
너무 = too (often used to mean ‘very’)
expensive
싸다 = to be not
expensive, to be
cheap
아름답다 = to be
beautiful
 뚱뚱하다 = to be
fat, to be chubby
길다 = to be long
좋다 = to be good
Some Quick Notes about Korean Verbs and Adjectives
Now it is time to start learning things that you can apply to
any verb or any adjective. There are a few things you need to
know about Korean verbs and adjectives:
1) I said this before (twice) but I’m going to say it again. Every
Korean sentence must end in either a verb or an adjective (this
includes 이다 and 있다). Every sentence absolutely must have
a verb or adjective at the end of the sentence.

2) You should notice (it took me months to notice) that every

Korean verb and adjective ends with the syllable ‘다.’ 100% of
the time, the last syllable in a verb or adjective must be ‘다.’ Look
up at the vocabulary from this lesson if you don’t believe me.

3) In addition to ending in ‘다’ many verbs and adjectives end

with the two syllables ‘하다.’ ‘하다’ means ‘do.’ Verbs ending
in 하다 are amazing, because you can simply eliminate the ‘하
다’ to make the noun form of that verb/adjective.
Confused? I was at first too. In fact, I don’t think I knew this until
3 months after I started studying Korean – but it is something so
essential to learning the language. It is confusing to English
speakers because we don’t realize that words can have a
verb/adjective form AND a noun form.
For example:
행복하다 = happy
행복 = happiness

성공하다 = succeed
성공 = success

말하다 = speak
말 = speech/words

성취하다 = achieve
성취 = achievement

취득하다 = acquire
취득 = acquisition

You don’t need to memorize those words yet (they are

difficult), but it is important for you to realize that ‘하다’ can
be removed from words in order to create nouns.

Verbs/adjectives that end in "~하다" are typically of Chinese

origin and have an equivalent Hanja (한자) form. Verbs that do
not end in "~하다" are of Korean origin and do not have a Hanja
form. If you can speak Chinese, you will probably have an
advantage at learning more difficult Korean vocabulary, as a lot of
difficult Korean words have a Chinese origin.

Korean Verbs
We have already talked about verbs a little bit in previous lessons,
but nothing has been formally taught. You learned the basic verb
sentence structure in Lesson 1. Let’s look at this again. If you want
to say “I eat food” you should know how to use the particles 는/은
and 를/을:
“I eat food”
I 는 food 를 eat

To make a sentence, you simply need to substitute the English words with
Korean words:

저는 + 음식을 + 먹다
저는 음식을 먹다 = I eat food
Although the structure of the sentences presented in this lesson is
perfect, the verbs are not conjugated, and thus, not perfect. You
will learn about conjugating in Lesson 5 and Lesson 6. Before
learning how to conjugate, however, it is essential that you
understand the word-order of these sentences. However, because
of some strange Korean grammatical rules, the sentences
provided in the "Adjectives" section are technically perfect but
are presented in an uncommon (but simplest) conjugation pattern.
Again, you will learn about these conjugations in Lesson 5 and
Lesson 6. For now, try to understand the word order of the
sentences and how the verbs/adjectives are being used.
As with previous lessons, conjugated examples (one
formal and one informal) are provided beneath the un-
conjugated example:

Let’s look at more examples:

나는 케이크를 만들다 = I make a cake
(나는 케이크를 만들어 / 저는 케이크를 만들어요)

나는 배를 원하다 = I want a boat

(나는 배를 원해 / 저는 배를 원해요)

나는 한국어를 말하다 = I speak Korean

(나는 한국어를 말해 / 저는 한국어를 말해요)

나는 공원에 가다 = I go to the park (notice the particle 에) (나는 공원에

가 / 저는 공원에 가요)

나는 문을 닫다 = I close the door

(나는 문을 닫아 / 저는 문을 닫아요)

나는 창문을 열다 = I open the window

(나는 창문을 열어 / 저는 창문을 열어요)
Remember that sentences with verbs don’t necessarily need to
have an object in them: 저는 이해하다 = I understand
(나는 이해해 / 저는 이해해요)

Some verbs by default cannot act on an object. Words like: sleep,

go, die, etc. You cannot say something like "I slept home", or "I
went restaurant", or "I died her." You can use nouns in sentences
with those verbs, but only with the use of other particles - some of
which you have learned already (~에) and some that you will learn
in later lessons. With the use of other particles you can say things
like:

I slept at home
I went to the restaurant
I died with her

We will get into more complicated particles in later lessons, but

here I want to focus on the purpose of ~를/을 and its function
as an object particle.

Korean Adjectives
Korean adjectives, just like Korean verbs are placed at the end
of a sentence. The main difference between verbs and
adjectives is that an adjective can never act on an object. Notice
in the sentences below that there is no object being acted on.
Adjectives are very easy to use. Just put them into the sentence
with your subject: (Remember that the examples in parentheses
show sentences that have been conjugated which you have not
learned yet.)

나는 아름답다 = I am beautiful
(나는 아름다워 / 저는 아름다워요)

나는 작다 = I am small
(나는 작아 / 저는 작아요)
이 버스는 크다 = This bus is big
(이 버스는 커 / 이 버스는 커요)

그 병원은 새롭다 = That hospital is new

(그 병원은 새로워 / 그 병원은 새로워요)

There is one confusing thing about translating sentences

with Korean adjectives to English. Notice that in all
examples above, the words "am/is/are/etc..." are used. In
English, these words must be used when using an adjective:

I am fat
He is fat
They are fat

Remember, the translation for "am/is/are" to Korean is "이다."

However, you do not use "이다" when writing a sentence like this
in Korean. Within the meaning of Korean adjective is "is/am/are."
Early learners are always confused by this. The confusion stems
from the fact that it is done differently in English and Korean.
Please, from here on, abandon what you know of grammar based
on English - it will only hold you back.

의 Possessive Particle
Note: The pronunciation of the letter "ㅢ" can change depending
on how and when it is used. You might want to check out the
section where I discuss the pronunciation of ㅢ in the
Pronunciation Guide of Unit 0.

You already know that ‘I’ in Korean is 저/나. You also know the
translation for various objects in Korean.

"의" is a particle that indicates that one is the owner/possessor

of another object. It has the same role as " 's" in English (for
most examples). For example:
저의 책 = my book
저의 차 = My car
저의 손가락 = my finger
그 사람의 차 = That person's car
의사의 탁자 = The doctor's table
선생님의 차 = the teacher’s car

You can use these words in sentences you already know (with verbs and
adjectives):

선생님의 차는 크다 = The teacher’s car is big

(선생님의 차는 커 / 선생님의 차는 커요)

나는 선생님의 차를 원하다 = I want the teacher’s car (나는 선생님의 차

를 원해 / 저는 선생님의 차를 원해요)

나의 손가락은 길다 = my finger is long

(나의 손가락은 길어 / 저의 손가락은 길어요)

그 여자의 눈은 아름답다 = That woman’s eyes are beautiful (그 여자의

눈은 아름다워 / 그 여자의 눈은 아름다워요)

You will find that words like “my/our/their/his/her” are often

omitted from sentences. As you will learn continuously throughout
your Korean studies, Korean people love shortening their
sentences wherever possible. Whenever something can be assumed
by context, words are often omitted from sentences to make them
more simple. For example:

나는 나의 친구를 만나다 = I meet my friend

(나는 나의 친구를 만나 / 저는 저의 친구를 만나요)

Can be written as the following:

나는 친구를 만나다 = I meet (my/a) friend
(나는 친구를 만나 / 저는 친구를 만나요)

In this case (and many others like it) you are clearly meeting
“your” friend, so the word “my” can be omitted from the
sentence.

Always try to stay away from translating sentences directly,

and try to focus more on translating sentences based on
context as done above.

좋다 and 좋아하다
The word 좋다 in Korean is an adjective that means
“good.” Because 좋다 is an adjective we can use it just
like any other adjective:

이 음식은 좋다 = this food is good

(이 음식은 좋아 / 이 음식은 좋아요)

그 선생님은 좋다 = that teacher is good

(그 선생님은 좋아 / 그 선생님은 좋아요)

이 학교는 좋다 = This school is good

(이 학교는 좋아 / 이 학교는 좋아요)

There is also 좋아하다 which is a verb meaning ‘to like.’ Because 좋아하
다 is a verb, can use it just like any other verb:

나는 이 음식을 좋아하다 = I like this food

(나는 이 음식을 좋아해 / 저는 이 음식을 좋아해요)

나는 그 선생님을 좋아하다 = I like that teacher (나는 그 선생님을 좋아

해 / 저는 그 선생님을 좋아해요)
좋아하다 gets formed by removing ‘다’ from 좋다 and adding 아 + 하다.
There is a reason for why this is done, and there is an explanation for how it
is done - but you do not need to know this yet. For now, just understand
that:

좋다 is an adjective which cannot act on an object

좋아하다 is a verb which can act on an object

We, Us, and Our (우리)

At this point I would also like to introduce you to the word “우
리” which you can see from the vocabulary list of this lesson
translates to “us” or “we.” In English, even though they are
technically the same word, the usage of “us” or “we” depends on
its location within the sentence it is used in. Just like “I” and
“me”, if the word is the subject of a sentence, “we” is used. For
example:

I like you
We like you

However, if the word is the object in a sentence, the word “us” is used. For
example:

He likes me
He likes us

In Korean, they do not make this distinction, and “우리” is used in both
situations. For example:

우리는 너를 좋아하다 = We like you

(우리는 너를 좋아해)
I deliberately didn't include a formal version of the sentence above because
it is usually awkward to say the word "you" politely in Korean. We'll get to
this in a later lesson.
선생님은 우리를 좋아하다 = The teacher likes us (선생님은 우리를 좋아
해 / 선생님은 우리를 좋아해요)

By placing the possessive particle “의” after “우리” we can create the
meaning of “our”. While this can be done, I feel it is much more common to
omit this particle when it is used with “우리.” In fact, the particle “의” is
very commonly omitted from words other than “우리” as well. However, I
don’t suggest thinking about doing this until you have a better grasp of the
language. At this point, I only suggest that you do this with “우리.” For
example:

우리 선생님은 남자이다 = Our teacher is a man

(우리 선생님은 남자야 | 우리 선생님은 남자예요)

우리 집은 크다 = Our house is big

(우리 집은 커 | 우리 집은 커요)

A formal version of “우리” is “저희”. However, even in formal

situations it is acceptable to use “우리”. At this point, you haven’t
even begun to learn about the different levels of formality of
Korean, so I don’t want you to get too worried about this word.