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What to Know About the Subject, the Infinitive and the Formalities
o Subject-Verb Agreement
o Korean Infinitives
o Korean Formalities
How to Conjugate Present Tense Korean Verbs
o 하다 — to do
o 가다 — to go
o 달리다 — to run
How to Conjugate Present Continuous Tense Korean Verbs
o 하다 — to do
o 가다 — to go
o 달리다 — to run
How to Conjugate Past Tense Korean Verbs
o 하다 — to do
o 가다 — to go
o 달리다 — to run
How to Conjugate Future Tense Korean Verbs
o 하다 — to do
o 가다 — to go
o 달리다 — to run
ree Ebook
Korean Infinitives
An infinitive is another name for a verb when it’s unconjugated.
In English, we write the infinitive as “to + verb.”
For example:
To eat
To run
To see
In Korean, unconjugated verbs end in 다.
For example:
먹다 — to eat
달리다 — to run
보다 — to see
To conjugate a Korean verb, the first step is to separate the verb stem from the 다
ending.
Korean Formalities
One aspect of Korean that’s different from English is that you need to consider
formality when speaking. You need to add honorifics to certain words and change
the way you conjugate verbs.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the three primary levels of formality:
1. Casual formality is used with people younger than you and with close friends.
2. Polite low formality is used in most everyday situations, and with people you’re
unacquainted with.
3. Polite high formality is used in public service announcements and when talking to
people with a higher social status than you (i.e., your boss).
Now that you know with whom each formality is used, let’s look at the four most
common tenses used in Korean. The majority of verbs will keep their original stem
spelling when conjugated. However, some verbs may change their spelling slightly
when conjugated.
We’ll focus primarily on verbs without irregularities in their conjugation since this is a
beginner’s guide.
If you ever come across a verb you don’t know how to conjugate, you can always
resort to using the Verbix conjugation tool!
And speaking of being a beginner, if you want a one-stop-has-it-all resource to help
guide your Korean language journey, FluentU is that stop!
To conjugate verbs into the past tense, you need to look at the last vowel in the verb
stem like you did in the present tense.
If the verb ends in ㅗ or ㅏ, you add 았다 to the verb stem.
If the last vowel isn’t one of these two, you add 었다.
Just like present tense verbs, some verbs that end in a vowel will condense.
For example: 가다 + 았어요 becomes 갔어요 instead of 가았어요.
Casual formality
o Verb + 았어 or 었어
Polite low formality
o Verb + 았어요 or 었어요
Polite (high formality)
o Verb + 았습니다 or 었습니다
하다 — to do
Casual formality: 했어
Polite low formality: 했어요
Polite high formality: 헀습니다
가다 — to go
Casual formality: 갔어
Polite low formality: 갔어요
>Polite high formality: 갔습니다
달리다 — to run
Casual: 달렸어
Polite low formality: 달렸어요
Polite high formality: 달렸습니다
The future tense is a little trickier than the other tenses we’ve looked at. There are
multiple ways of expressing the future tense.
The nuances of each conjugation are outside the scope of this article, so we’ll just
focus on the most common way of talking about a future action.
To make the future tense, drop the 다 ending from the verb and add ㄹ if the verb
ends in a vowel or 을 if it ends in a consonant.
It’s also worth noting that you don’t need to add anything to verbs ending in ㄹ.
Casual formality
o Verb + ㄹ or 을 거야
Polite low formality
o Verb + ㄹ or 을 거예요
Polite high formality
o Verb + ㄹ or 을 겁니다
하다 — to do
Casual formality: 할 거야
Polite low formality: 할 거예요
Polite high formality: 할 겁니다
가다 — to go
Casual formality: 갈 거야
Polite low formality: 갈 거예요
Polite high formality: 갈 겁니다
달리다 — to run
Casual formality: 달릴 거야
Polite low formality: 달릴 거예요
Polite high formality: 달릴 겁니다