Lesson 2 - How to Make a Sentence in Korean

Hey everyone! Welcome back to KPOPOLOGY's grammar points posts.

Today it's all about sentence-making. The main question will be: how do you make a sentence in Korean? You'll learn how to through this post!

One of the first steps you need to make to know more about Korean is to understand how the Korean sentence structure works. Whether you want to understand and sing your favourite artists' songs or study the language, this post might help you. So stick around!

So let's get to it!

The answer to this will be simple. The thing you will have to do is to check which one is the main verb of the sentence. Why? Easy. It's because they're usually found at the end of every sentence (except in songs or conversations).
Now that this was explained, let's move on to see the types of sentences there are. Yes, there are different kinds. Buckle up, and let's check them out together.


Before analysing the whole structure and rules of this grammar point, you will need to ask yourself one question: how do we know when a sentence ends?





Types of sentence structure: 
  
There are three main patterns for basic Korean sentences: S+N (Subject+Noun), S+V (Subject+Verb), S+O+V (Subject+Object+Verb). Seems complicated, but it’s easier than what it looks like.   


1. The first one sees the subject at the beginning of the sentence, followed by a Noun to which the copula (the verb 이다 to be) is usually attached to. Let’s look at an example: 


English: That person over there is a teacher 
Korean: 저 분은 선생님이에요 
  


2. The second pattern is pretty simple, too. You have the Subject of the sentence followed by the Verb. Let’s look at some examples: 


English: The cat eats 
Korean: 고양이가 먹어요 


English: She is pretty 
Korean: 그녀는 예뻐요

  
3. The third not only has the verb and the subject of the sentence; it also has the object of it. The order goes like this: subject -> object -> verb.
English: Jinyoung is reading a book 


Korean: 지녕씨는 책을 읽고 있어요 


However, even though these ones are the main sentence pattern (for basic Korean level), there are some other things to be taken into consideration: adverbs, time expressions, place expressions and such. Where do we place them? Easy. There’s a specific order to follow, so don’t worry.
It’s pretty easy. Keeping in mind that the verb always is at the end of the sentence, the rest will come naturally after some training. 
The order I’m talking about is the following:  
        S      –              T               –             P             –        O       –     A       –    V 
[Subject – Time expression – Place expression – Object – Adverb – Verb] 
 

나는 아침에 집에 우유를 많이 먹어요 
I in the morning at home milk a lot of drink 


-> I drink a lot of milk at home in the morning 


Fun facts! 






1) In a sentence, you can usually omit some parts, depending on the context (it can be the subject; the adverb; the time or place expression)


2) You don’t always have to add everything in the sentence, just the necessary parts that you require depending on the context 


3) Context is key to understanding a sentence








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