Korean Language Guide

Official language in
South Korea
Also spoken in
North Korea
Script
Hangul

Where it's spoken

The Framework Act on the National Language defines "the national language" as Korean, the official language of the Republic of Korea, and "Hangul" as the country's own script for writing the national language. Under the Standard Language Regulation, the standard language is in principle contemporary Seoul speech used widely by educated people. The standard dictionary of the National Institute of Korean Language also records 문화어, the language standardised in North Korea as the basis for language life there, laid down around the speech of Pyongyang.

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Script & pronunciation

Hangul is a featural syllabic script: its syllables are formed from alphabetic components called jamo, and the consonant and vowel letters are visually combined into square cells to form syllable blocks. Chinese ideographs, called hanja in Korean, are still used together with Hangul in South Korea, although public documents are written in Hangul and hanja may be put in brackets only in the cases the Presidential Decree sets out.

Words are separated by spaces, but a particle is attached to the word before it. This app's cards romanize one syllable block at a time, joined by hyphens: 감사합니다 is Gam-sa-ham-ni-da. The national standard writes Korean by its standard pronunciation, and hyphenates syllables only where the reading could be confused, as in Jung-ang.

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Grammar essentials

The basic word order of Korean is subject-object-verb, and Korean uses postpositions rather than prepositions. Grammatical roles are marked by particles written onto the end of the noun. In 화장실이 어디에 있어요? (Hwa-jang-sil-i eo-di-e i-sseo-yo?, "Where is the toilet/bathroom?"), this app's card glosses 이 as the subject particle and 어디에 as "where", and the verb 있어요 stands last. In 한국어를 못해요 (Han-gug-eo-reul mot-hae-yo, "I can't speak Korean"), the card glosses 를 as the object particle and 못 as a negative adverb meaning "cannot", which is placed in front of the verb.

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Politeness & etiquette

Korean raises the person it is addressed to through the choice of the sentence-final ending. The standard dictionary of the National Institute of Korean Language calls this 상대 높임법 and lists six styles, of which two cover most of the cards here. 하십시오체 raises the listener very high, and the dictionary's examples are 안녕히 계십시오, 정말 오래간만입니다 and 반갑습니다; the card 다녀왔습니다 (Da-nyeo-wat-seum-ni-da, "I'm back") ends the same way. 해요체 raises the listener to an ordinary degree and is the non-formal style used in place of the formal 하오체 and 하십시오체; its dictionary example 안녕히 계세요 is itself one of the cards here (An-nyeong-hi gye-se-yo, "Goodbye (to person staying)"). Between friends neither style is used, as in 고마워, 또 봐 (Go-ma-wo, tto bwa, "Thanks, see you").

Second-person pronouns are avoided, and reference terms such as 아버지 ("Father") and 선생님 ("teacher") are used as pronominal substitutes. 당신 is a second-person pronoun used where the 하오체 style would go. The suffix -님 adds the sense of raising the person named.

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