I Should Talk to My Wife First
아내하고
[Anaehago meonjeo yaegihaeya twaeyo.]

Suggestion, Supposition, Obligation, and Prohibition

Ah, I’m glad you’ve heeded my suggestion and continued on to chapter 21! The themes for today are propositive and imperative sentences. Hmm, and what do these mean? Well, we’ve already learned a lot about declarative sentences, which simply state information about something. And we’ve covered many different ways to make interrogative sentences, which ask about something. So what’s left? Stop. Put the book down. Think about my question. (Any ideas? ^^)

That’s right, imperative sentences are what you use to give commands to people. And, just like in English, you can form these without stating the subject of the sentence. For example, simply say “Stop” instead of “You, stop” (the subject is always understood as “you,” or “you all”).

So those are imperatives, which we’ll get to later. But what about propositives? What are those? Let us think about that… Shall we pool our ideas…? Right! Propositive sentences propose something. Now, we briefly went over one of these forms long ago back in chapter 6, didn’t we? It was the pattern 1 conjugative ending 一자, which adds the meaning of “let’s” to a verb. But you can’t use this ending to make a suggestion to a person you’re not close to; in other words, it’s a plain ending. But don’t worry, because there are other, even easier ways of doing this, and one is to simply add 우리 (“we/us”) at the beginning of the sentence, like so:

우리 다음 주에 산에 가요. [Uri taeum chue sane kayo.] Let’s go hiking next week. (Lit: Let us go to the mountains next week.)

우리 같이 공부해요. [Uri kachi kongbuhaeyo.] Let’s study together.

                

Using 같이 in addition to 우리 makes the proposition even stronger, so whoever you’re talking to will have a hard time turning you down! So, I see you’ve proposed that we study together more. Okay, I can’t help but accept! Let’s keep studying as you proposed.

We don’t even need to study that one anymore—it’s too easy! Actually, it’s so easy I feel guilty. I’m supposed to be challenging you to learn new things, right? So now I feel like scaring you with a more complicated propositive form. ^;^ And that would be the verb ending ᅳᄅ까요? / ᅳ물까요

Hmm…you might be thinking this looks like an interrogative ending. It ends with a question mark after all, right? But wait. Shall we think about this? Shall we figure it out? Yes, these are questions, but they’re also propositions! In fact, forming your propositive sentences in this way is a softer, more respectful way of doing it. And you know how Koreans appreciate respect!

Okay, if you look closely at this ending, you might notice something familiar. It includes the future ending ᅳᄅ / ᅳ을, doesn’t it? We’ve learned a lot about that one recently. And it makes sense that the future ending would be included in this propositive form, because in English we translate it into “Shall we…?” “Shall” is the future tense form of “should,” so there you have it! As you can see, we’re still going to use 우리, and sometimes 같이, in these sentences as well. Now, shall we practice?

우리 다음 주에 산에 갈까요 [Uri taeum chue sane kalkkayo?] Shall we go hiking next week?

우리 같이 공부할까요 [Uri kachi kongbuhalkkayo?] Shall we study together?

우리 같이 영화 볼까요 [Uri kachi yeonghwa polkkayo?] Shall we watch a movie together?

우리 결혼할까요 [Uri kyeolhonhalkkayo?] Shall we get married?

Oops, I’m sorry…but I’m already married. I can’t accept your proposal. ᅲᅲ But if I hadn’t gotten married, I’d consider it. (Uh-oh, where’s my wife? Please don’t show this page of the book to her. ^^)

If I hadn’t gotten married…

The word “if” is a useful one. Let’s think about a scenario. A friend of yours asks you to lend him a large sum of money, but you don’t have it. So you might respond, “Of course I’ll lend you the money, if you lend it to me first.” ^^ If it weren’t for the word “if,” you’d have no choice but to lend your money! And nobody wants that. So let’s learn how to express the meaning of “if.” Of course, this is done through another conjugative tool, in this case the conditional or suppositive ending: (으) 면.

내가 결혼을 안 했으면… [Naega kyeolhoneul an haesseumyeon…] If I hadn’t gotten married…

(으) 면 belongs to conjugation pattern 3, remember? I know you’ve seen it before. If the stem of the verb or adjective ends with a consonant, you need to add -으 before 면 for the convenience of pronunciation. In the sentence above, you can see this happen when the ending is added to the past-tense stem of 하다: 했.

Oh, I bet you’re still wondering how to say that bit about the money lending, right? Ha, I knew it! Let’s look:

돈 있으면 좀 빌려주세요. [Ton iseumyeon chom pilryeojuseyo] If you have money, please lend me some.

좋아요. 먼저 규병 씨가 돈을 빌려주면 저도 빌려드릴게요. [Choayo. Meonjeo kyubyong ssiga toneul pilryeojumyeon cheodo pilryeodeurilgeyo.] Sure. If you (Kyubyong) lend me the money first, I’ll lend you some, too.

In these two sentences, we can see two uses of the conditional ending: 있으면 and 빌려주면. The first is 있 + 으면, while the second is 빌려주 ₊ 면. I can’t stress it enough: remember to always pay attention to whether the stem ends in a consonant or a vowel.

Anyway, in my case, before I lend you any money, I really should get permission from my banker…my wife.

Should, should not

So how would I express obligation to you in Korean, that I “should” or “have to” do something? For those of us who are married or in a serious relationship, this is an important one, right? And, just like relationships can be quite complicated at times, the ending for this one isn’t too simple. It follows the rules of pattern 5, the most difficult, and here it is: -아야 / -어야 / -여야. You conjugate the principal verb using this ending, and then add the verb 되다 after it. So the full expression is -아야 / -어야 / -여야 되다. Check it out:

아내 하고 먼저 얘 기 해 야 돼 요. [Anaehago meonjeo yaegihaeya twaeyo.] I should talk to my wife first.

Remember the rules of vowel contraction? That’s why, when we add the ending -여야 to the verb stem 얘기하, we get 얘기해야. Likewise, the honorific form 1 ending -어 요 attached to the verb stem 되 gives us 돼요.

Okay, and what’s the only thing more important than knowing what you should do? Right—what you should not do! This is an expression of prohibition, and actually it’s a form of negation. Sound familiar? Of course, following what you learned in the last chapter, you might be tempted to simply turn the verb 되 다 into a negative by saying 안 되다. And you’d be correct! But in this case, you don’t use the -아야 / -어 야 / -여 야 ending for the main verb, but rather the conditional (으) 면. So the final product for the prohibitive expression is (으) 면 안 되다.

학교에 늦으면 안돼. [Hakgyoe neujeumyeon an twae.] You shouldn’t be late for school. (My mom had to tell me this every day.)

회사에 늦으면 안돼요. [Hoesae neujeumyeon an twaeyo.] You shouldn’t be late for work. (Now, my wife has to tell me this every day.)

Do, do not

As you can see, I have a problem with being late! But the people in my life have always managed to keep me under control. Of course, sometimes they use “don’t” instead of “you should not” when they tell me these things: “Don’t be late for school.” “Don’t be late for work.” These are negative commands (imperatives).

Again, this relates back to what we studied in the previous chapter. Remember the endings ᅳ지 않다 (“do not”) and 一지 못하너 (“cannot”)? Similarly, the formation of a negative imperative is going to employ the ending 지. It’s -지 말다. We’ll usually conjugate the verb 말다 using the honorific suffix -(으) 시. After all, you’re telling someone what not to do, so you need to soften it up as much as you can. This gives us a set expression of -지 마세요.

Hmm…what do you tell people not to do?

일을 너무 열심히 하지 마세요. [Ireul neomu yeolshimhi haji maseyo.] Don’t work too hard. (All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.)

담배를 끊지 마세요. [Dambaereul kkeunchi maseyo.] Don't quit smoking. (Think ot all tliose poor employees of tobacco companies who will lose their jobs. ^^)

술을 줄이지 마세요. [Sureul churiji maseyo.] Don’t reduce your drinking. (It will deprive your significant other of the pleasure of nagging you!)

Hmm…I’m unsure of the quality of advice I’m giving you, but at least you’ll remember this expression now. ^^

Phew! That’s a lot of propositives and imperatives we just learned! Shall we review quickly?

1. In Korean, to make a proposal, you can simply add 우리 and 같이 to your sentence, or use the -ᄅ 까요? / ᅳ을까요 propositive ending.

2. To express the idea of “if,” use the conditional ending (으) 면.

3. By conjugating a verb with the -아야/-어야 / 一여야 ending and then adding the verb 돼요, you can tell someone what they “should” do.

4. Conversely, to say “should not,” you use the expression -(으) 면 안돼요.

5. And lastly, to create the meaning of “don’t,” use the expression ᅳ지 마세요.

Look at all the versatility you’ve just added to your repertoire. Slowly but surely, you’re building up quite the bag of Korean tricks!

Korean Style: Korean proverbs

The more Korean you learn, the more interesting it gets, right? One thing I can teach now that you’ve progressed so far is Korean proverbs. Because proverbs are supposed to be allegorical, they can be confusing for beginners. Lucky for you, I’m here to explain everything to you. And once you learn how to use these proverbs correctly, your Korean will be considered excellent! Here are a few of the simpler Korean proverbs:

가는 말이 고와야 오는 말도 곱다 [kaneun mari kowaya oneun maldo kopda]

Lit. Talk to others nicely and they will talk to you nicely, too.

This one’s easy, right? It’s the equivalent of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

가재는 게 편이다 [kajaeneun ke pyeonida]

Lit. Crawfish are on the side of the crab.

Do you know what crawfish and crabs look like? I’m not sure what exact species this proverb is referring to, but the point is they have a similar appearance. So this one means, “People stick up for their own kind.”

낮말은 새가 듣고 밤말은 쥐가 듣는다 [nanmareun saega teutgo pammareun chwiga teunneunda]

Lit. Birds may hear you during the day and rats at night.

Yes. These days animals are quite smart, and they can understand your spoken language, even Korean!
Be careful of what you say out loud, because “The walls have ears.”

뛰는 놈 위에 나는 놈이 있다 [ttwineun nom wie naneun nomi itda]

Lit. When you are running, someone is flying.

This one seems strange to me. After all, humans can’t fly, can they? Maybe it’s talking about people in a plane. Anway, the meaning is, “There is always someone one step ahead of you.”

배보다 배꼽이 더 크다 [paeboda paekkobi teo keuda]

Lit. The belly button is bigger than the belly.

What? This one’s funny, right? How can your belly button be bigger than your belly? But hey, stranger things have happened! In this case, we’re talking about a case in which “the tail is wagging the dog.” In other words, something of an otherwise minor importance has taken over the situation.