안녕하세요!
Alright so I’m starting the week off with a word I stumbled on a few days ago. I’ve heard it before but I honestly couldn’t remember what it meant and everytime I wanted to look it up, I forgot about it altogether.
So now here it is! The elusive word…
자네 (ja-ne) | “you; used generally in addressing a person of distinctly lower status”
Today’s Grammar of the Week is actually a post that should’ve been done a while back. I don’t really know how I got through not talking about this. We talked about the polite forms along with vowels and consonants here, here and here. And so I won’t go back into detail on that.
So let’s talk about (~(으)시).
(~(으)시) is added to the verbs in the sentence when we are talking about someone of higher position than us or talking to someone in a higher position than us. Basically, someone who is in a position of respect. This would include, parents, teachers, boss, older ones, customers, etc.
For example:
“I will study hard!”
In English, this works fine to say to whomever. In Korean, not so much. It all depends on whom you’re speaking with.
- Friend: “나 열심히 공부해. (na yeolsimhi gongbuhae.)
- Someone in a position of respect: 저는 열심히 공부합시다. (jeoneun yeolsimhi gongbuhabsida.)
Notice in the second sentence, not only did the pronoun for “I” change, but you also added in ~(으)시 when conjugating the verb 공부하다.
So this is just a quick lesson to keep in mind. It is pretty important if you’re planning on learning Korean fluently and maybe even possibly moving to Korean. I would suggest looking over the lesson here at howtostudykorean.com and paying attention the chart below.
| Original Word | + ~(으)시다 | + ~아/어요 | + ~ㅂ/습니다 | + ~았/었다 |
| 가다 (go) | 가시다 | 가셔요 | 가십니다 | 가셨다 |
| 공부하다 (study) | 공부하시다 | 공부하셔요 | 공부하십니다 | 공부하셨다 |
| 알다 (know) | 아시다 | 아셔요 | 아십니다 | 아셨다 |
| 찾다 (find) | 찾으시다 | 찾으셔요 | 찾으십니다 | 찾으셨다 |
| 걷다 (walk) | 걸으시다 | 걸으셔요 | 걸으십니다 | 걸으셨다 |
| 고르다 (select) | 고르다 | 고르셔요 | 고르십니다 | 고르셨다 |
| 있다 (to be at) | 있으시다 | 있으셔요 | 있으십니다 | 있으셨다 |
| 짓다 (build) | 지으시다 | 지으셔요 | 지으십니다 | 지으셨다 |
(chart source: howtostudykorean)
So that’s it for this week!
