Basics - Lesson 9 - Using Negative Copulas Lesson




Negative Copula

In Korean, when you are trying to say something is not something else, we use the negative copula anieyo. For instance, When saying 'A is not B', we would say :-

cho-nun songsaengnim-i anieyo ( I am not a teacher ).
hanguk hakkwa-ga anieyo ( Not the Korean department ).


 

Answering questions with Yes and No in Korean

This is a tricky aspect of the Korean language, it is quite different to how we would speak in English.
For example: -
Question in English = "Do you like Korea ?"
Answer in English = "Yes I do like it" or "No i dont"
Answer in Korean = "No, I do like it" or "Yes i dont"

As you can see...it can be confusing at first, so you will need to think carefully.

 

Where is it?

When asking where something is in Korean, you would say (X-subject) odieyo?
However, it is also possible to say (X-subject) odi issoyo?

When answering a Where is question, you must always use issoyo as a verb such that:-
hakkyo-ga kogi issoyo ( the school is over there ).

 

Using Korean sentences with but....

We have previously seen that shillye hamnida and the equivalent shillye-jiman mean "Excuse me,but" or "I'm Sorry, but...." .
There are lots of verbs where you may attach -jiman onto, here are a few of them:-

ka- ( go )   ka-jiman ( goes, but .......)  
ha- ( do )   ha-jiman ( does,but......)  
sa- ( buy )   sa-jiman ( buys,but.....)  
iss- ( is/are, have )   it-jiman ( has,but....)  
mashi- ( drink )   mashi-jiman ( drinks,but.....)  
mok- ( eat )   mok-jiman ( eats, but.......)  
anj- (sit )   anj-jiman ( sits, but.....)  


Note that for the word iss-jiman the double ss is re-written to itjiman

 

Using polite requests

In Korean, the word chom is used to mean "please", however do not mistake it to mean the same as the English word for please for all occurances. For instance, when you use chom in a request immediately before the verb at the end of the sentence, it takes on the effect of please.
It is most frequently using in relation to chu- when making requests, for example
Han songsaengnim chom pakkwo-juseyo( Can I speak to Mr Han ), or you might use it in Soju chom chuseyo ( Please give me the Soju ). As you can see, chom may be used to soften up requests by making it more polite.