The Subject Marker, 이/가

How to use the subject marker in Korean

The subject marker marks the subject of a verb, or who or what is performing said verb.

This marker works with both action and descriptive verbs, unlike the object marker (을/를), which can only mark the object receiving an action (and thus can only be used with action verbs).

How do we mark words with the subject marker to show who is performing a verb?

When the subject ends in a consonant, attach 이.

When the subject ends in a vowel, attach 가.

Examples:

김치가 매워요.

Kimchi is spicy.

Kimchi is the subject, performing the action of being spicy (맵다 - to be spicy).

서준이 사과를 먹어요.

Sojoon eats an apple.

Sojoon is the subject, eating (action) the apple (the object).

Let’s do some conversation practice with all three markers we’ve learned so far:

Conversation Practice

Informal:

서준: 저는 햄버거가 맛있어요. 김치도 좋아해요.

영호: 저는 햄버거를 더 좋아해요. 김치가 매워요.

Sojoon: (As for me) hamburgers are delicious. I also like kimchi.

Yongho: (As for me) I like hamburgers more. Kimchi is spicy.

Wrap Up

Let’s break down the above:

Sojoon: 저는 햄버거가 맛있어요.

저는 is simply being used to make Sojoon the topic of the conversation. It doesn’t literally mean “I” here.
Since the topic is established with 저는, 햄버거 becomes 햄버거가 instead of 햄버거는.
햄버거 is the subject, performing the action of being delicious (맛있다 - to be delicious).

Yongho: 저는 햄버거를 더 좋아해요.

저는 switches the topic of the conversation from Sojoon to Yongho.
Yongho is the subject, performing the action verb 좋아하다 (to like) on 햄버거 (hamburgers). So 햄버거 becomes 햄버거를 using the object marker.

Yongho: 김치가 매워요.

The topic of the conversation is already Yongho, so we use the subject marker instead of the topic marker here because we’re still talking about Yongho’s opinions.

Using 저 with the subject marker is a special case:

I am Yongho. I eat kimchi.

How would we say this? What goes in the blank?

저는 영호예요. ___ 김치를 먹어요.

When using the subject marker with 저, you get “제가” instead of “저가”:

저는 영호예요. 제가 김치를 먹어요.

미국는 재미있어요. 제가 많이 좋아해요.

Vocab Review!

미국 = America

햄버거 = hamburger/s

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