Lesson 4: Korean Adjectives ~

Vocabulary
The vocabulary is separated into nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs for the purpose of simplicity.
Hover your mouse over any word to see examples of that word in use (you probably wont be able to understand the
grammar within the sentences at this point, but it is good to see as you progress through your learning).
A FREE PDF file neatly presenting all of these words and example sentences in addition to common usages and specific
notes can be found here.
Want to give your brain practice at recognizing these words? Try finding the words in this vocabulary list in a Word Search.
Nouns:
= street
= street/road
= we/us
= hand
= English
= taxi
= train
= train/subway station
= bus station
= airplane
= bicycle
= wife
= child
= son
= daughter
= husband
= father
= mother
= letter
= taste
= meal
= morning
= breakfast
= water
= apple
Verbs:
= come
= to finish something
= dance
= know
= walk
= learn
= practice
= think
= to live
Passive Verbs:
= to be finished
Adjectives:
= dangerous
= handsome
= ugly
= tired
= different
= sad
= delicious
= fun, funny
= many/a lot of
= happy
Adverbs and Other Words:
= there
= there (when farther away)
= now
= but
For help memorizing these words, try using our Memrise tool.

More Common Greeting Words
I wish I could tell you not to worry about these. Of course, I can tell you dont worry about these, but I dont think that will
do. When learning a language, everybody wants to learn these words as soon as possible. I understand that completely,
but I have purposely waited to teach you these types of words. In fact, I still dont want to show them to you but at this
point I am sure you are asking yourself Ive gotten this far and I still dont even know how to say goodbye yet!
In Korean, it is much easier to understand these words/phrases if you also understand why they are used the way they
are. Unfortunately, we havent reached the point where you can understand this. We will get to that in a few more lessons.
Either way, here are some very common phrases which I am sure you are dying to know:
= Goodbye (said to somebody going)
= Goodbye (said to somebody staying)
= Nice to meet you
= Excuse me
/ = Sorry
? = What is your name?
______ = My name is
? = Where are you from?
_______ = I am from
If you cant memorize them, that is okay. I still maintain the position that you should put off memorizing these until you can
understand the grammar within them.
Now that we have gotten that out of the way, lets start studying some actual material.
Using Adjectives ~/
Alright, this wont help you understand those greeting words any better, but what you are about to learn is a major step in
learning Korean. You should remember these two important facts from the previous lesson:
1. All sentences must end with either a verb or adjective
2. All verbs/adjectives end with the syllable
Although both of those are true (and always will be), lets look at them more deeply:
All sentences must end with either a verb or adjective
Yes, but verbs and adjectives can ALSO go elsewhere in a sentence. In the previous lesson, you learned this sentence:
= I want a boat
( / )
But what if you want to say: I want a big boat. In that sentence, there is a verband an adjective. Where should we put the
adjective? In Korean, this adjective is placed in the same position as in English. For example:
= I want a boat
big = I want a big boat
Simple. So we just substitute the Korean word for big () into that sentence?:
= Not correct. Not by a long shot.
Remember that second rule I taught you?:
All verbs/adjectives end with the syllable
Yes, but the version of the word with as the last syllable is simply the dictionary form of that word and is rarely used.
Every verb/adjective in Korean has a stem, which is made up of everything preceding in the dictionary form of the
word. Lets look at some examples:
= (stem) +
= (stem) +
= (stem) +
= (stem) +
= (stem) +
Most of the time, when you deal with a verb/adjective, you eliminate and add something to the stem.
When you want to make an adjective that can describe a noun, i.e.:
small boy
big boat
delicious hamburger
soft hand
you must eliminate and add ~ or to the stem of the adjective.
Words in which the last syllable of the stem ends in a vowel (//) you add to the last syllable:

Words in which the last syllable of the
stem ends in a consonant
(//) you add to the
stem:
Word Stem Adjective that
can describe a
noun
Example Translation
Small man
Good son
A lot of money
Looking back to what we were trying to write before:
I want a big boat = = incorrect
I want a big boat = = correct
The key to understanding this is being able to understand the difference between the following:

= the food is expensive
= expensive food
The first example is a sentence. The second example is not a sentence. The second sentence needs more words in order
for it to be a sentence. You need to add either a verb or adjective that is acting on the noun (expensive food). For
example:
= I eat expensive food
= Expensive food is delicious
More examples of using adjectives to describe words within a sentence:

(Remember, for the last time you do not know how to conjugate verbs and adjectives at the end of a sentence yet. This
will be introduced in the next lesson. Because you do not know how to conjugate verbs/adjectives at the ends of
sentences, examples with un-conjugated forms are presented in this lesson. Remember that these sentences are
technically incorrect, but understanding them is crucial to your understanding of the Korean sentence structure.
As with the previous three lessons, I have provided conjugated examples below each un-conjugated example. You will
probably not be able to understand these conjugations.)
= I go to the small house
( / )
Word Stem Adjective that
can describe a
noun
Example Translation
Big boat
Expensive food
Cheap thing
= I meet a handsome man
( / )
= I have a lot of money
( / )
If you can translate the following sentence, it is safe to say that you understand the concepts taught in this lesson:
(See the end of the lesson for the answer)
Also, some adjectives play by a different rule. There is a reason for this rule, but you will understand it better when I
explain it in another lesson. For now just memorize it. Whenever an adjective ends in , instead of attaching ~/ to
the stem, you must attach ~ to the stem. For example:
= that man is a funny man
( / )
Notice the difference in structure but similarity in meaning with the following:
= That man is funny
Another example with ~ construction:
= I eat delicious food
( / )


One adjective that is a little bit different than other s is . When it is used as __(noun)__ it usually translates to a
lot of/many ______. For example:

= I eat a lot of food
( / )
= I have a lot of money
( / )
= I have a lot of wives (ha!)
( / )
But when it is placed at the end of the sentence, it usually translates to there is a lot of ________. For example:
= there is a lot of people
( / )
= there is a lot of food
( / )
Also notice that the particles / are attached to the subjects in sentences ending with . There are some words
where the use of the particles ~/ on the subject of the sentence is more natural than the use of ~/. is one of
these words. We will continue to tell you in which situations it is more natural to use ~/ instead of ~/ as we
progress through our lessons.

Particle ~
~ is another particle that is very useful in Korean. It has the meaning of too/as well. It can replace the subject particles
(/) OR the object particles (/), depending on what you are saying too with. For example:
= I speak Korean as well (In addition to other people)
( / )
which is different from:
= I speak Korean as well (in addition to other languages)
( / )
Make sure you notice the difference between the previous two examples. In English these two are written the same, but
sound different when speaking. In the first example, you are emphasizing that YOU also speak Korean, in addition to other
people that you are talking about. In the second example, you are emphasizing that (in addition to other languages), you
also speak Korean.
See the two examples below for the same issue:
= I eat apples as well
( / )

= I eat apples as well
( / )
Notice the difference in pronunciation in English. The first one has the meaning of other people eat some apples, but I too
eat some apples. The second example has the meaning of I eat some other food as well, but I also eat apples. It is
important to recognize that whatever noun ~ is attached to is the thing that is being expressed as too. More
examples:

More examples:
= I know that, too
( / )
= I am tired, too
( / )
= My daughter is happy, too
( / )