I mentioned in the lesson on the particle 들 that Korean is very context dependent, and often times certain words can be left out if what you’re trying to say is already clear.
The same principle often applies when you want to ask someone a question in Korean:
Notice how when pronouncing the sentences above, the only difference is in the intonation, whereas in English the two sentences are actually spelled differently.
Here’s another example of adding intonation to a sentence to turn it into a question:
밥 literally means “rice,” but it also translates to food in general.
As we’ve learned, in Korean it’s important to use the right politeness level based on who you’re talking to. Let’s cover some of them:
The 요 form is something we’ve seen many, many times. 요 is an informal form, and is used when you’re talking to:
This form is not used in more formal situations (TV broadcasts, giving a speech/presentation)!
See above audio clips for examples of this form.
We’ve learned that we can use “(으)세요” to make polite requests.
Please sit down.
You cannot use “(으)세요” to declare something about yourself. This form is meant to honor the subject, or the person you’re speaking about/to.
You would never honor yourself, so this is incorrect:
To use 앉다 (to sit) to talk about yourself, say:
The “(으)세요” form can also be used as a question, honoring the listener (subject) and making the question extra polite:
Do you like cats?
Do you go to school?
The (ㅂ/습)니까 ending makes a question formal and polite. To use it:
An example using 이다 (to be):
Are you Minji?
The same sentence, using the informal 요 form:
Are you Minji?
There is also a formal and polite form for making declarations, i.e. statements.
It’s slightly different:
We’ve seen this before when learning how to say “sorry” and introduce yourself to someone new. We’ll cover this and other polite forms more in a future lesson.
Other examples:
Is the test easy?
Are you eating right now?
Notice how, in the sentence examples above, we don’t use any words for “you.” Korean, again, is very context dependent. Your intonation will convey everything. A question like:
고양이를 좋아해요?
Is clearly directed at the person you’re talking to. No need to say “you.” There are ways to say “you” in Korean, however, which we’ll cover later on.
There are still other ways to ask questions! For example, a different form is used when you want to ask a question in the form of a suggestion, for example:
Shall we go to the movies?
We will learn more about the other forms in future lessons.