Learn Korean Online - Simple Explanations in PLAIN English

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Hi,

Today’s class was the first of what I like to call ‘the nuts and bolts of Korean’ – the skill that you absolutely have to have if you want to be able to move any further into more complex Korean.

More specifically, in today’s class we did what I call ‘ㅗ-verbs’ (‘oh-verbs’). The skill you’ll need to take from this is to know (and be able to change between) the base/root form of a verb, and the ‘changed’ or conjugated form of a verb, and it will become more clear as to exactly why in a few classes as we start bringing in more examples using both.

So, if you have any questions, please reply to this and ask away.

Cheers!

P.S. If you are super new to Korean, interested in trying to learn Korean online, and can’t yet read, I fully recommend you learn how to read and write first as it will make the rest of your learning journey that much less frustrating (’cause it can already be frustrating enough at times). If you look up to the right of this post, you’ll see a big RED sign saying “free”. By putting your name and email into the box just below there, you’ll get class #1 (over 70 mins of video – with hand-out – teaching exactly how to read, write, and pronounce the Korean alphabet) emailed to you right away, and that should get you started off on the right foot. Cheers

6 Responses to “Reply To This ‘Learn Korean Online’ Post To Ask Your Question Related To Class #14 – ‘ㅗ (oh) – verbs’”
  1. Ahuva says:

    Hi Rob,
    About: “오셨어요?”
    Is it the honorific form of: “왔어요?” or
    Is it the Common level of the Past tense of 왔어요?
    I got a little lost here.
    Thank you

  2. Ahuva says:

    Oh , I forgot to ask one more thing:
    what does “맛있게 드세 요” exactly mean? (enjoy your meal? perhaps?)
    Thank you

  3. Rob says:

    Hi Ahuva,

    About the honorific forms…

    Let’s first put the verb into its base form, 오다.

    The past tense base of this would be 왔다, which we could then conjugate into our 3 levels…

    왔습니다
    왔어요
    왔어

    …왔습니다 being the ‘honorific’ level.

    BUT, if we go back to our base form, 오다, we can actually add something else in here to make it a bit more formal, and that is ~시.

    It goes on the end of a verb, is quite formal/respectful, and can only refer to someone else, not yourself. So if we put that on 오다, we get 오시다, in its base form.

    So when we conjugate that, we’re actually going to conjugate the ~시 part. So if we conjugate that into its past tense base form, we’d get 오셨다. Putting that into its 3 levels of conjugation, we’d get…

    오셨습니다
    오셨어요
    오셨어

    …오셨습니다 being the ‘honorific’ conjugation.

    Does that help? If it’s still a bit confusing, let me know.

    Thanks Ahuva, and I’ll get to your next question here in a second.

    Rob…

  4. Rob says:

    Hi Ahuva,

    Yes, contextually, 맛있게 드세요 means “Enjoy your meal.” It more literally translates to “Eat deliciously.”

    Great questions, Ahuva!

    Rob…

  5. Ahuva says:

    Thank you Rob for your explanation.
    So , when you put it in the Brackets here it this sentence:
    (당신은) 어디서 왔어요? (오셨어요?) it’s to show how to say it in the more formal/respect way in the past tense (common level)?

  6. Rob says:

    Yes, and it’s actually more for listening, just to show you another way you might hear the question asked.

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