Lesson # 5: Sentence Structure
Sentence Structure of the Korean Language
Noun 1 + Noun 2 + to be = Noun 1 is Noun 2 or I + Noun + to be = I am ‘noun’
In Korean, the verb always goes last.
So, to say ‘I am a cat’, you would say ‘I cat am’. In Korean, this would be the following:
저는 고양이예요. (juh-neun go-yangi-ye-yo)
*Remember! The Korean language does not use words like ‘a’ or ‘the’. It makes it a lot easier to formulate sentences without having to worry about them, but there are things called particles, which will have their own lesson a little later.*
는 = subject marker (neun); this makes ‘I’ into the topic of the sentence
예요 = am (yeyo) (after consonant)
To say ‘I am not a cat’, you would just replace ‘예요’ with ‘아니에요’. You can also replace ‘고양이’ with any other noun, like 학생 (student).
저는 고양이아니에요. (I am not a cat)
저는 학생아니에요. (I am not a student)
이거는 고양이아니에요. (That thing is not a cat)