Lesson 4 on Present tense and Progressive sentence. Check out my other lessons for basic Korean lessons!

1. Korean Lessons 4
Suganthi J

2. Introduction
• In the previous lesson we learned about
numbers. It is kinda hard to memorize so I’ll
leave it to you guys. If you are confident with
numbers, you can search in the Google drive
for a video in which I’ve explained how to tell
time.
• For this lesson, we will learn grammar. (Yay!)
Beware, it will get a bet difficult, but do not
worry. You can do it!

3. Grammar in Korean
• Just like any other language, we have grammar
and rules in Korean. It is, of course, different from
English grammar. The sentence structure
changes.
For e.g.: In English you would say
I ate hamburger
But in Korean it will be
I hamburger ate
See the difference?

4. Present tense
• There are three endings for present tense and
that depends on the ending letter of the word.
If the root word ends with an '아' or '오' use '아요'
For example:
To go - 가다
To make the verb its present tense form, remove '다', and join '아요'. When joining a verb the
ending fuses to the root word, so that the flow is smooth. In the case of '가아요', the two 아
become one, '가요'.
I am going. - 가요.

5. Present tense
• All other endings utilize 어요, except those which end in '하'. Let's have a
look at a verb which would require '어요'.
Here is the example:
• To eat - 먹다
• And of course, we cannot forget the very important '여요'.
• In the Korean language, effort is made to adjust various aspects for ease in
speech. It can be noted in this area very clearly.
• To conjugate a verb whose root ends with '하', '여요' is attached, so that it
read '하여요'. However, over time '하여요' has become '해요'.
• Though '하여요' has not been removed from Korean speech, it is hardly
used. And you will hear '해요' on a very regular basis.
• And the example:
• To do - 하다

6. Progressive tense
• Let’s say you wanna say.. “ I’m eating, I’m working, etc.
So what to do in that case?
• Simple. Just add 고 있다 to the verb! As simple as that.
1. I am working now.
• So to turn it into the progressive, we simply
add 고 있다 to the verb stem, which is 일하
일하 +고 있다 = 일하고 있다
• Now we can conjugate it into the present tense, and
we get:
일하고 있어요.

7. Conclusion
• I think this is enough for today, let me give you
some words and try to write them in present
tense and progressive tense!
• 사다-To buy
• 살다-To live
• 기다리다-To wait
• 요리하다-To cook
• 하다-To do