Beginners Lesson 1: 존댓말, honorific style language review + future tense
In this lesson we’ll be taking a more in depth look at using one type of honorific language in Korean. We went over it a bit in Getting Started: Lesson 12.
This honorific form is used to express the speaker’s respect for the subject (person they are referring to) of the sentence. This honorific is used when the person you’re addressing/speaking about is older or higher in social status than you. It’s also commonly used when the speaker doesn’t know or isn’t familiar with the person, even if they happen to be younger or lower in social status than you are.
The honorific is made using -으시-. Adding -으시- to the word stem but before the conjugating tense elevates the politeness level of whatever it is you’re trying to say.
-으시- is used with verbs, adjectives, 있다/없다, and 이다.
-으시- is used with the stems of verbs and adjectives ending in a consonant, and 있다/없다.
아버지가 문을 닫으세요. Father closes the door.
-시- is used with the stems of verbs and adjectives ending in a vowel.
어머니가 신문을 보세요. Mother looks at the newspaper.
With 이다, -이시- is used with the noun ends in a consonant and -시- is used when it noun ends in a vowel.
선생님 + 이시 + 어요 → 선생님이세요.
의사 + 시 + 어요 → 의사세요.
이분이 말하기 수업 선생님이세요. This person is my speaking teacher.
저분이 서울 병원 의사세요. That person is a Seoul Hospital doctor.
Using the above stated rules, the honorific form can be made into the past tense as follows:
받다: 받 + 으시 + 었어요 → 받으셨어요
가다: 가 + 시 + 었어요 → 가셨어요
아버지가 전화를 받으셨어요. Father received a phone call.
어머니가 시장에 가셨어요. Mother went to the market.
The above shouldn’t be anything new if you’ve already gone over the previous 존댓말 lesson linked at the top of this post. Next we’re going to look at how to construct the future tense using -으시-, and the above mentioned spelling rules.
받다: 받 + 으시 + ㄹ 거예요 → 받으실 거예요
가다: 가 + 시 + ㄹ 거예요 → 가실 거예요
아버지가 전화를 받으실 거예요. Father will receive a phone call.
어머니가 시장에 가실 거예요. Mother will go to the market.
When using -으시- or other polite forms of speaking, some verbs change from their regular forms to special honorific forms. The following are these verbs in their dictionary -다 form, the informal-polite form, and the special honorific form.
먹다 (to eat): 먹어요 → 드세요, 잠수세요
마시다 (to drink): 마셔요 → 드세요
자다 (to sleep): 자요 → 주무세요
말하다 (to speak): 말해요 → 말씀하세요
*있다 (to be at/in a location): 있어요 → 계세요
*없다 (to be not at/in a location): 없어요 → 안 계세요
어머니가 점심을 드세요/잠수세요. Mother eats lunch.
아버지가 물을 드세요. Father drinks water.
안영히 주무셨어요? Did you sleep well?
선생님이 나중에 말씀하실 거예요. The teacher will tell you later.
*The honorific -계세요 is used only when the subject of the sentence is a person.
eg: 우리 할머니가 부엌에 계세요. (My grandmother is in the kitchen.)
The subject of this sentence is the grandmother, a person, so 계세요 is used.
When the subject of the sentence is an object, or a thing–anything but a person–and the verb 있다 is being used to indicate possession, 있으세요/없으세요 is used to express the respect the speaker has for the owner of the item/concept being possessed.
eg: 내일 오후에 시간이 있으세요? (Do you have time tomorrow afternoon?)
The subject of this sentence is time, not a person, so 있으세요 is used.
A few more examples of this:
아버지가 거실에 계세요. Father is in the living room.
밖에 비가 와요. 우산이 있으세요? It’s raining outside. Do you have an umbrella?
같이 갈 수 있으세요? Are we able to go together?
Bonus: When using the honorific -으시- the subject marker -이/가 can be changed to -께서 and -한테 can be changed to -께. Changing these is not required, but it does make the sentence even more polite.
할아버지께서 영화를 보세요. Grandfather watches the movie.
할아버지께서 아버지께 전화하세요. Grandfather gives father a phone call.
Rules regarding irregular verbs and adjectives:
Verbs that end in ㄷ and that are considered irregular drop the ㄷ from the stem and is replaced with ㄹ before being conjugated if the conjugation to follow begins with a vowel.
듣다 (to listen): 듣 → 들 + 으시 + 어요 → 들으세요
레오 씨기 음악을 들으세요. Leo is listening to music.
With adjectives that end in the consonant ㅂ, the ㅂ is dropped and 우 is added instead. Because 우 is a vowel, -시- is used in this instance.
춥다 (to be cold): 춥 → 추우 + 시 + 어요 → 추우세요
With verbs that end in the consonant ㄹ, the ㄹ is dropped entirely if the ㄹ is to be followed by a verb or adjective conjugation that begins with ㄴ, ㅂ, or ㅅ. Otherwise they are treated as if they end in vowels instead.
살다 (to live): 살 → 사 + 시 + 어요 → 사세요
우리 할머니가 독일에 사세요. My grandmother lives in Germany.
That’s it for this form of 존댓말. :)
For a more in depth look at the seven different types of irregular verbs and adjectives in Korean, please check out my special post regarding their individual rules by clicking here.
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