Basics: Speech levels and politeness 2: 요 or -yo

In the last post we saw some different people you might talk to, and the terms formal, informal, familiar. Remember who we might use them with?
Today, we're going to look at the actual endings

The most general ending which foreigners use is -요-yo. This is generally used in informal and familiar situations. So you would use it with your friends, family and when chatting to strangers.
Remember the base form of verbs? BasicallyThis is the very basic rule, verbs actually change a little
depending on the stem, but here these are just examples.
If you want the exact rules go to the links section Just drop the -다-da depending on the verb add -아-/-어--a-/-eo- and then the -요-yo.

• 사랑 하다sarang-hada / to love becomes 사랑 해요sarang he-yo / I love you
• 먹다meogda / to eat becomes 먹어요meog-eo-yo / I eat

This ending is generally taught as the default ending to students, because it cant be offensive to anyone. But with children, it is inappropriate. Why? well that's because with this ending, you are putting yourself lower than the person you're speaking to.
On the Korean scale of life, children are lower. Imagine being the king and bowing to a random kid who walks into your castle? It's pretty much the same thing when you use -요-yo with a child.

But when you use it with a stranger or someone the same age, and they use it back you are both on the same level because essentially you're bowing to each otehr. Imagine a disgusting lovey-dovey couple saying "I love you" / "no I love you more" back and forth to each other. When you use -요-yo you're saying "I respect you" / "no, I respect you" back and forth to each other. The point being in the first sentence "my love is equal" and the second example "our respect is equal".

Korean basics: verbs 2 / Speech levels & politeness 1

So there are two kinds of verbs, descriptive and normal. In their usual forms they are identical. They both take tense endings and politeness endings. Which is what we will look at today.

Speech levels or politeness endings are very important in Korean, and can be very confusing. But the first rule of communication is "don't panic" (that should be the first rule about pretty much anything new). But actually, If you think about it, you do actually change the way you speak depending on you talk to, even in English.
You don't say "alright mate"US English "waddup my beeee-atch to your boss do you? It might be strange to say it to someone you've just met too. But it would be ok to say it to your friend. You probably wouldn't say it to your Dad, and you're pretty weird if you say it to your Grandad. And what if you said it a five year old?

Korean has exactly the same situations, but instead of only using different words or intonation, accent, etc, Korean always puts an ending on the verb. looking back at the different people you would/wouldn't say "alright mate" to we have:

• Your boss
• Someone you've just met
• your friends/peersyou'll see why I used this in a little while
• Your parents & grandparents
• children

Generally the words formal, informal, and familiar are used to describe the endings, Which of the situations above fall into those categories?

That's right! Formal is for situations where there is not yet a personal relationship. Maybe one will develop, but maybe it would be inappropriate, ie with your boss. So logically you would add a formal ending in that situation.

Familiar is where you do have a personal relationship with someone. So that's your friends and family

Well what about informal? That's when things get complicated, because in English there's one thing that we don't really take into account. And that's..... age! Informal applies to situations when you speak to someone who is the same age or younger, but you don't know them well. You're not going to discuss taxes and politics with a child are you?