ㅋㅋ, 줄임말 and 갖다: casual Korean and text speak

A full syllable takes several keystrokes, so people often type only its first consonant and leave the reader to fill in the rest. ㅋㅋ is the sound of a laugh with the vowels gone. ㅇㅇ is 응응, yes yes.

Length matters with laughter. A long string of ㅋ is someone really laughing, ㅋㅋ is a light chuckle, and to many people a single ㅋ reads as dry or unimpressed. ㅎㅎ is warmer and milder, so it can soften a message to someone you're less close to: 감사합니다 ㅎㅎ.

A lot of younger people also leave off the full stop in chat, so a message that ends in one can look stiff or even annoyed. This is the sort of thing that varies from person to person, so watch what your friends do and copy it.

A plain 네 can look cold in a text, so people change it. 넵 is brisk and willing, and you'll see it a lot in work chats: 넵 알겠습니다. 넹 and 네넹 are cuter, and they belong with friends.

Endings get the same treatment: 요 can become 용, as in 고마워용, and 다 can become 당, as in 감사합니당. That's a polite ending with a smile on it, so it's friendly and a bit childish. Use it only with people who write that way to you.

줄임말 are shortened words, and Korean makes them constantly. The usual recipe is to take the first syllable of each word. Unlike the consonants above, these are real spoken words, and many are fine with 요 in everyday conversation.

Slang goes off quickly. A word can feel current one year and embarrassing a couple of years later, and new ones appear all the time, so any list goes stale. The ones above have lasted, but for anything newer, understand it first and use it only once you've heard your friends use it.

Conversation shortens the most common words. Particles merge with what comes before them or vanish, so 밥을 먹었어? is nearly always 밥 먹었어? You've already met some of this, and these are the forms you'll hear in every drama.

얘, 걔 and 쟤 started out meaning "this child" and so on, and now they mean any friend or younger person. Example 5 shows the other thing to listen for. The standard spelling is 네가, but 네 and 내 sound the same to many speakers, so "you" comes out 니가 and you'll see it typed that way too.

갖다 is the word you'll hear in casual Korean that dictionaries list twice. One is a contraction of 가지다, to have. The other is a contraction of 가지어다, which is 가져다, to take something somewhere.

As "to have", 갖다 only works before an ending that starts with a consonant. Before a vowel, you go back to 가지다. So 갖고 and 갖지 are fine, but 갖아요 and 갖으면 are wrong. This one is a firm rule.

As 가져다, it means you take something from one place to another, and it goes in front of a second verb. 갖다주다 is one word in the dictionary, to bring someone something. You'll also hear 갖다 놓다, to put something somewhere, and 갖다 버리다, to take something out and get rid of it.

The third job you've seen. 아/어 가지고, the casual 아/어서, often wears down to 아/어 갖고: 너무 피곤해 갖고 못 갔어, I was so tired I couldn't go. You'll hear this in almost any long conversation.

Among friends, you drop 씨. If a given name ends in a consonant, you then add 이 to it, and that 이 carries no meaning: the dictionary calls it a suffix that evens out the rhythm. Speech levels mentioned it in passing, and here it is properly.

This goes on given names, not surnames, and only for people you'd call by name in 반말: friends, younger people and children. Saying it about someone older sounds as if you're talking down to them. With foreign names people vary, so listen to how your friends handle yours.

Most of this assumes you're writing to a friend who's your age or younger. Move it one step up, to someone older, someone senior or someone you've just met, and it starts to say something you didn't mean. These are the ones to keep away from them.

Some words are a step further, and these you should leave alone with anyone. The prefix 개, put in front of an adjective to mean "really", is a young people's intensifier, and it's coarse enough that you shouldn't use it near anyone you'd want to impress. Dramas and games are also full of swearing, which I'm not teaching. Native speakers judge it finely, and it's very easy to get wrong.

One warning sign is worth learning. A new word ending in 충, which means insect, is usually an insult aimed at a group of people. If you meet one online, it's useful to understand it and a bad idea to repeat it.

Every line of that is correct, friendly Korean between two friends. If A were B's manager, almost every line would be a problem.

This is the last lesson. There's plenty more Korean, but not much more grammar: from here it's mostly new words and the odd rare ending.

What a guide can't give you is speed. Knowing what 더라고요 means and catching it in fast conversation are different skills, and the second only comes from years of reading and listening. Go and do that, and when a sentence won't make sense, come back and look up its ending.