This lesson is on pronouns.
You may already be aware that there are three ways of speaking in Korean: the casual way, the polite way, and the formal way. Which one you use depends on who you are speaking to. Casual speech is for close friends and people younger than you. Polite speech is for strangers, people older than you and people ranked higher than you. Formal speech can also be used for all the same people that polite speech can, and, in addition, it is used for addressing large groups, elderly people, and anyone else to which you want to show extra respect.
Polite language and formal language are often used interchangably, and, when it comes to pronouns, there is usually only one word that is considered both polite and formal. So, as we go through this lesson, I will be showing you how to say each pronoun in both the casual way and the polite/formal way.
Let's get started with first person singular. In English it is "I" In Korean the casual version is "Na" and the polite/formal version is "Jeo". I remember the casual version of "I" by thinking of that taunt: "NA NA NANANA". It's not very polite, so never say "NANANANA" in polite speech. Say "Jeo" instead.
Thia is fairly straight forward right? we have Casual: "Na", and polite/Formal:"Jeo". Well, not all Korean pronouns are that easy. Korean has a totally different way of doing things.
So, get ready.
Let's get into "you"
To say "you" in Korean the casual way is "neo" and the polite/formal way... THERE IS NO POLITE/FORMAL WAY! When you think about it... it is kinda rude to call someone you. Instead, you should say their name every time. That's a more polite way to address someone. Of course, we don't always know someone's name. So, instead we can use their jobtitle, or just call them man, or woman. or , often Koreans do not use any word at all. You see, Korean is a pronoun drop language. They often drop the pronouns from the sentence altogether.
In Korean if i am talking to you all i have to do is look at you while I'm saying something and you'll get the idea.
Here's an example with a phrase you might have heard before
"I love you" in Korean is "Saranghaeyo" so which part of that is the "I" , which part is the "love", and which part is the "you"? Well, there is no "I" or "you" in this sentence. The word "Saraghaeyo" just means "love" and the fact that I am looking at you while I say it is all that is needed to let you know that it is "me" who loves "you".
Dropping the pronouns from your sentence seems like a foreign idea at first but we can relate to it.
You might give someone an instruction by saying "pick up that brick". You don't have to say "I want you to pick up that brick" that is all implied .
Also, around Christmas time we look at eachother and we say "Merry Christmas". We don't need to say "I hope you have a Merry Christmas". No one ever gets confused by the phrase Merry Christmas. We don't really need all those extra pronouns, and neither does Korean. They just take it a step further
Now, you may see it taught in other places that the formal/polite way of saying "you" is "dang-sin". But, don't use this regularly. This version of "you" means "darling" or "dear". It is used between romantic partners. You can also use it sarcastically, if you wanna start a fight with someone. But, for the majority of your interactions do not use "dang-sin", only for people that you love passionately or hate passionately. Otherwise you might find yourself in an uncomforable situation.
So, like I said either you drop the word "you" entirely or you replace it with the persons name, job title, or just something like man or woman. We're gonna go over job titles in a future video as for man and woman here we go:
아저씨 (middle aged man),
아줌마 (middle-aged woman), be careful with this one don't use it for any woman who looks under 45 years old. This is middle aged woman.
you might Also consider using:
아주머니 =middle aged woman but a little less ... harsh sounding, maybe younger sounding
사모님 (Wife of any respectable man) It might also be translated as madame. It should be used for wealthy looking women
할아버지 (elderly man),
할머니 (elderly woman)
선생님 this literally means teacher and I said we weren't learning job titles in this video, but seon-saeng-nim doesn't just refer to professional teachers. You can use it for anyone you want to show respect to, anyone who strikes you as intelligent. seon-saeng-nim
on the other side there is also
학생 hak-saeng =student and it is safe to use assume any child or teenager is a hak-saeng student
There are also words for young man chong-gak and young woman a-ga-ssi but nobody uses these words anymore. They've fallen out of fashion, but elderly people may still use them towards young adults and I think men sometimes use agassi to hit on young women. BUT NICE BOYS DON'T DO THAT!
Another thing you can do instead of calling someone man or woman is say "Excuse me" to get their attention, and then once you are looking at them... and they are looking at you... You don't need to use pronouns at all because it's all implied!
So to say "excuse me" you say:
저기요-over there. As in "hey you over there."
or
여기요-over here. As in "look at me over here."
Alright! So now third person singular. In English "He" and "She". In Korean, well, there is no one way to say "he" or "she", but there are lots of ways of speaking about someone in the third person.
However, like I said Korean is a pronoun drop language and what you typically do is identify the person by name at the beginning and then drop the third person pronoun for the remainder of the paragraph.
But, if you do use a third person pronoun, instead of refering to someone as "he" or "she" in Korean you say either "this person", or "that person", and you can replace "person" with a more specific word if you like such as "man", "woman", "child", "old man", "middle aged man" etc. Let's go through some of them.
This person: 이사람
"i" means "this" and "sa-ram" means "person".
That person: there are 2 types of "that" in Korean. If you are talking about a person nearby "that" is "geu", so "that person" is 그사람
For when a person is far away like maybe so far away you can't see them. They're off in another location. The version of "that" you use is "jeo" ( ya, ok this can be really confusing because we just learned that "jeo" is the Korean word for "I". They are homophones. Words that sound the same but have different meanings.)
So far away "that" is "jeo" and "that person" is 저사람.
Now, what words can we use in place of "sa-ram" or "person"? we can use "man":"nam-ja", "woman":"yeo-ja", "middle aged man" :"a-jeo-ssi", "middle aged woman": " a-jum-ma". You can really use any word. If you wanna refer to someone as an idiot? 바보. But, but here's an important one you should definately commit to memory "bun". This is a very respectful way of saying "person". You might almost consider it the formal ways of saying "he" or "she", and, with the obvious exception of 바보, the previously mentioned ones are the polite ways.
Now all that's missing is the casual way.
Look at how long all these words are we definately need a casual version.
the casual versions of he and she are derived from the words for "this child" or "that child" BUT YOU CAN USE THESE WORDS FOR ADULTS TOO
이아이,그아이, 저아이 and you take these words, and you sorta slur them a bit, and squish'em into one sylable and you get your casual he and she:
얘 yae
걔 gae
쟤 jae
gae and jae are written as gyae and jyae, but you know human nature we like things to be easy so when you're talking at norml speed they're pronounced as gae and jae without the "y" sound
and the translation for these is: this or that guy or gal or kid I suppose. but it's used for adults too not just children. It is the casual he and she.
first take is bad
One more thing, you might see is he and she translated as:
He=geu
She= geu-nyeo
These words are only used when people are translating something from English into Korean as literally as possible. These words are never actuallty used by Koreans. Not in speech, or writing.
...and now there's one more third person pronoun "it". To say "it" you say "this thing" or "that thing" and you can use the same words regardless of whether you're speaking casual or polite/formal.
이것
그것
저것
Alright now we get to move on to first person plural, or as we call it in English "we"
The casual "we" is 우리 "u-ri".
The polite/formal "we" is 저희 "jeo-hui"
Notice that the polite/formal "we" contains the polite/formal "I": 저 "jeo".
Sometimes you will see "u-ri" and "jeo-hui" with a "deul" 들 added to the end to indicate that it is plural. But this is not necessary in the case of the "we" pronoun.
Now second person plural in English this is "you" when you are speaking to more than one person. We don't technically have a different word for plural you in english but sometimes Americans will say "y'all", or "you guys". For those of you who know other languages the plural you in French is "Vous" in Spanish it is "vosotros" or "ustedes", in Mandarin Chinese it is 你們 " nǐmén.But we're interested in Korean and in Korean "you" for when you are speaking to more than 1 person is:
"neo-hui-deul" 너희들 in the casual form
or sometimes you drop the "deul"들.
and as we know there is no polite/formal way of calling someone you in Korean so what they do instead is say
yeo-reo-bun(여러분) which means "everyone"
remember this part "bun" is a polite way of saying "person".
Lastly, let's learn how to say "they". Let's learn the 3rd person plural pronoun.
Remember what we learned for 3rd person singular
이사람 this person
그사람 that person (nearby)
저사람 that person (faraway)
now to make it plural you have to put 들 on the end. And now we have
이사람들 these people
그사람들 those people (near)
저사람들 those people (far)
and just like before we can replace the "sa-ram" part with any word we chose.
남자,여자,것
and let's not forget the polite/formal way of saying
"person"
이분들
그분들
저분들
and of course the casual ones
얘들
걔들
쟤들
It should be noted that the "deul" at the end of the "they" pronouns is very necessary because it is the only thing that distinguishes them from the he and she pronouns.
Let's sumarize this lesson:
WATCH THE LESSON: https://youtu.be/MMmE1G0sVr8
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