Can you help me figure out the difference between 버리세요 and 버리어요? The both seem to mean to throw something away and I just wanted to figure out if I was maybe doing something wrong.
This might be a long answer anon, so bear with me haha^^
In Korean, verbs come at the end of the sentence (it has an SOV sentence order) and these verbs are heavily conjugated. They are conjugated according to tense, mood, speech level, honorifics, but not gender or number (there is no difference between we eat and he eats for instance).
버리다 means “to throw away”, and it also can be used following other verbs to express that the verb was done to completion (잊어버리다 and 잃어버리다 are two examples that are commonly used). In this case, I’m just going with “to throw away”.
To conjugate 버리다 in present tense, we look at the last letter of the stem (to find a stem, drop -다 from the dictionary form). Since it is 이, we need to add 어 like you said in your ask. However, when 이 and 어 meet in conjugation, they combine into 여 so the correct conjugation is 버려요, not 버리어요.
However, you also have to look at who you’re speaking to and how formal and polite you need to be. In my daily life, I commonly use 해체 (impolite informal) and 해라체 (impolite formal, also used in impersonal writing (among other things)) with close friends, 해요체 (polite informal) with my classmates, teachers, and general strangers, and 하십시오체 (polite formal) when I do presentations, interviews, write emails, or talk to elderly people. I’ll conjugate 버리다 below to each of those levels in declarative present tense so you can see what I’m talking about.
Now (으)시 is an honorific particle added directly after the verb stem, so you will conjugate it instead of the verb stem. You add -시 after a stem ending in a vowel, and -으시 after a stem ending in a consonant. If this particle is added to an irregular verb stem though, there are few things that will occur (but that is another long post for another day). This honorific particle can be used at any speech level, but it is never used when talking about your own actions. Only use it when talking about the actions of others who you are talking respectfully about. For example:
친구: 오늘 뭘 배웠니? (Friend: What’d you learn today?)
나: 선생님이 우리에게 불규칙 동사를 활용하는 법을 가르쳐주셨어. (Me: Our teacher taught us how to conjugate irregular verbs.)
In this example, my friend and I were talking informally, but when I talked about my teacher’s actions, I used the honorific (in past tense) to show respect.
-세요, as seen in your ask, is the 해요체 present tense form (-셔요 is also used, but I usually only ever see and hear -세요). But, it is also the imperative form ending for 해요체. Tone and context allows you to determine the intended meaning. If you’re wanting to “command” someone older than you/with more authority/who deserves respect with the 해요체 level, you should use -주세요 instead of just -세요. This makes it a politer “please do this” instead of just “do this”.
So while both 버리세요 and 버려요 mean “throw away”, the former indicates respect for the subject or is a command to “throw away” something. Hopefully this long explanation helped a bit and if you have any other questions, just ask^^
