Forming the present tense

I'll begin the lesson with an example

가다 becomes 가 요

In the above example 가다 is the infinitive, meaning "to go." 가요 is the present tense, meaning "go."

The way this is formed is you look at the infinitive 가다. Since it has an ㅏ
and the ㅏ is at the end of the character you simply add a 요 (which is a polite marker, however, you can just omit the 요 if you are speaking informally or non-politely). The ㅏ im referring to is not the one in 다 but the one in 가. 다 is included in every verb's infinitive form (equivalent of "to").


But let's take a look at the infinitive 살다 meaning to live.

As you can see from 살 that it has an ㅏ but the ㅏ is followed by a ㄹunderneath it, you have to form this a little differently. You must add 아 to form the present in this case.

살다 becomes 살아요

What happens if a word doesn't have the character ㅏ ? Well if it has ㅗ then you also need to add a ㅏ

For example.
보다 becomes 봐요

If a word has neither ㅗ orㅏthen you must add ㅓto the word.

For example

(to give) 주다 becomes 줘요

But take notice of the following two formations

(to eat) 먹다 becomes 먹어요
(to read) 읽다 becomes 읽어요

Notice how the above have the 어. In some cases, you cannot combine the ㅓinto the actual verb, so in these cases you have to add an 어 instead. We kind of saw this before with the verb for "to live."

살다 becomes 살아요

Like 먹다, 살다 needs an extra character inserted in the verb to form its present tense, except for 살다 you need 아 and 먹다 needs 어.


So how do you know when you need to add the 아 or 어 instead of combining either ㅏ or ㅓ with the current word?

Usually you will need to add the extra word when the original verb ends with a consonant ending. If the verb ends with a vowel ending, you usually will combine the ㅏ or ㅓ.

Questions? Please reply in here.

I'm a little bit confused about this lesson...but i will try my best to understand this lesson..

question..
to combine the 아 or 어 in a word the ending should end with consonant,
and this ㅏ or ㅓ should end with vowels...right???
like this 보다 becomes 봐요, but how do i read this in romanized characters
봐요 = pao-yo...is this right??

i cant understand this characters (to read) 읽다 becomes 읽어요..what is the romanized of this word??
thanks.

the romanisation would be "ilgeoyo"...

This Topic was a little hard for me. I didn't get it that much. may be cause i am still new to the web and trying to get through all the contenets to see it all. thank u and I will do my best to read it more and more ,

If you want to learn this then learn how to write hangul first. Its not good to learn by romanization. Besides Hangul won't take too long to learn. BTW Good job Lance! =]

You make it sound simple so I'm getting more interested ^-^ Thank you!

thank u alot ^^ its confusing alittle bit...but im trying to do my best to learn korean,,

Thanks, I'm finding this forum really helpful to learn korean!

seem difficult. but i will try

I HAVE TO LEARN KOREAN BADLY!!!
lol
THANK YOU! im on my way to learning...

yaay me!