aYaaai

Not a Good Day...

Spontaneously awake at 4AM, cut through my fingernail on my thumb by 9AM, got back a 58% on an Organic Chemistry midterm by 10AM. And that’s just this morning. Can’t wait to see how the rest of the day will turn out.

Lesson #4B: Honorifics

raikasblog:

learnkorean:

I’m not sure if it’s because my circadian rhythm is still off from that midterm, or I have some serious insomnia, but it’s 4:10AM and I just woke up. Either way, I’m up, annoyed, and bored. So here’s the second part of lesson 4 comming at ‘chya: Honorifics.

Alright, the next part of this particular lesson is going to be about honorifics. In Korean, there are levels of politeness, just like in Japanese and Chinese; you wouldn’t say the same sentence to your friend and to your grandpa. It’s just not done. Here’s senshuk’s account of Honorifics, in case I glossed over it. And, according to the KBS Radio Website, Lesson 5, there are four levels of honorifics. My Korean teacher in high school gave these levels names, and none of them really stuck — throughout my childhood, I just used the most polite form I knew because everyone I had to talk to in Korean was more than 15 years older than me.

But I digress. The lowest one is the most casual, as in speaking to peers or subordinates. The highest one is the most formal, reserved for bosses, presidents, or anybody you want/need to show large amounts of respect to (for some reason, this form always strikes me as Old Korean, like the type spoken to kings and stuff). The most commonly used honorifics used in the Korean language are the middle two. The higher level is used for your boss, patrons of a store, anywhere you have to be polite. The lesser of the two is used usually for acquaintances, not so close friends, family, and the like. The Basic Korean: A Grammar and Workbook describes it pretty well, if a bit wordy in their Unit 5. The book calls them deferential and polite speech levels.

The main thing that you have to worry about this is because of the verb. The verb is everything in Korean. The main role that honorifics hold in constructing and making sentences is verb conjugation. In case you forgot like I had, verb conjugation is changing the form of the verb to create subject-verb agreement and add tense to your sentence. Basically, you conjugate to make your sentence sound right.

Let’s use an example in English. Let me set up the scenario (cause you really need that here /sarcasm). Let’s say you were watching a movie and you get a phone call. Your friend asks you what you’re doing. You would say, “I’m watching a movie” not “I watch a movie” cause that would make you sound stupid. It’s the same as in Korean.

Enough of the backround, I can hear you say. “Start the Korean!” you say. Fine then, let’s start with the Korean. Just so we have something to work with, here’s a short list of basic verbs.

• 가다 - to go
• 읽다 - to read
• 먹다 - to eat
• 쓰다 - to write
• 하다 - to do
• 가르치다 - to teach
• 보다 - to see
• 배우다 - to learn
• 열다 - to open

Let’s start with the deferential form.

Deferential Form

You can identify the deferential form by it’s ending, as will all of these different honorifics. Deferential usually ends with “다” so that’s your first clue. If you want to conjugate these verbs into the deferential form, it depends on the base verb. You have to pay attention if the base verb has a 바침(ba-cheem) or if it ends in a consonant. If it has a  바침, you add 습니다. On the other hand, if it doesn’t have a 바침, you add -ㅂ니다. Let’s illustrate this with a couple examples.

• 가다 —> 갑니다
• 보다 —> 봅니다
• 먹다 —> 먹습니다
• 가르치다 —> 가르칩니다
• 쓰다 —> 씁니다
• 읽다 —> 읽습니다
• 열다 —> 엽습니다

Polite Form

The polite form is identified by it’s ending “요”. To conjugate verbs into this form, instead of looking for 바침, you look at the vowel of the last character. If it’s a ㅏ or ㅗ, you add -아요, otherwise you add -어요. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, where certain verbs have special conjugations in this form and those you’ll just have to have an ear for or memorize. Another thing to note is that if it ends in a vowel, you contract the verbs or combine them. Some examples conjugating this form are below.

• 가다 —> 가요
• 읽다 —> 읽어요
• 하다 —>해요
• 배우다 —> 배워요
• 먹다 —> 먹어요
• 쓰다 —> 써요
• 열다 —> 열어요

Alright, I thinks that’s all I can possibly say about this topic. But if you find that this is a hard concept to grasp, go the the linked workbook above and go to Unit 5, which starts on page 38 of the document. Unfortunately, a lot of internet sources I’ve found kind of gloss over this topic, so unless someone sends me a formspring with another place to learn this, that’s all you get.

Having trouble conjugating verbs? Use Wiktionary. The one catch here is that you have to be able to type in Korean to use it. Can’t type in Korean? If you’re on a Mac, it’s already there under International in System Preferences. If you’re on a PC, click here and download Korean with the Language Pack. The only requirement is that you need to have an authentic version of Windows. Either way, if you end up being able to type in Korean, print this out for a reference until you’ve memorized where the characters are.

Alright. This lesson took over an hour to write. It’s 5:50AM. And I’m still not tired. Insomnia sucks. I’ll be around and in case this is the last time I talk to you guys before Thanksgiving, Happy Turkey Day guys! Be safe, eat yourself silly, and I’ll be back when you guys meander back here.

… I really do hate insomnia, but at least I’m productive during it.