How a Korean sentence works

Korean puts the subject first, the object next and the verb at the end. Linguists call this SOV, and English, with its verb in the middle, is SVO. Japanese, Turkish and Hindi work the Korean way. More of the world's languages put the verb last than in the middle, so the order that feels backwards is the more common one.

The first five glosses below keep the Korean order so you can see it. After that they go back to English order.

Example 4 shows the closest thing Korean has to "to be", and it goes last like any other verb. Example 5 shows that even "want" is part of the verb at the end.

This is why you have to listen to the end of a Korean sentence. The end of the sentence settles whether it's positive or negative, past or present, statement or question. English gives most of it away by the second word, so half-listening works. It doesn't work here.

English shows who did what by position. "The dog bites the man" and "the man bites the dog" are different news stories. Korean tags each noun with a particle instead, and the tag travels with the noun.

Compare 2 and 3. The words sit in the same places, and swapping the tags is what changes who gets bitten. Here are four of the tags. The 는 in 저는 is another, and lesson 3 is about that one:

Since each noun carries its own label, the order before the verb can change. 밥을 저는 먹어요 is grammatical and still means "I eat rice", though the plain order is the usual one. The verb is the one piece that stays put. You do a little more work on every noun, and in return you get to move things around.

Each sentence below is scrambled. Tap the pieces in Korean order and you'll hear the result. If your hand goes to the verb first, that's the English habit, and it fades with practice.

밥을 먹어요 has no word for "I", and it's a complete sentence. Korean leaves out whatever the listener can recover, and the subject is usually the first thing to go. Adding 저는 doesn't make it clearer, only heavier.

English does this in text messages: "Got home, ate, going to bed." Nobody asks who. Korean does it in ordinary speech, all day.

Nobody says "I" or "you" in that whole exchange, and B doesn't even repeat 학교. B's 밥 먹어요 also has no 을: speakers often drop the object particle in casual Korean. Learn the particles first anyway, since you can't choose to leave out something you never learned.

So name the subject when it's new, unexpected or unclear, and otherwise leave it out. Starting every sentence with 저는 is correct, and it sounds like a speech about yourself.

With the verb fixed at the end, the rest falls into a default order. Korean allows others, but this one usually sounds fine.

English tends to put "tomorrow" at the end, so your instinct points the wrong way here. For places, 에 goes with going there and 에서 goes with doing something there. Lesson 13 has the details.

To ask a yes-or-no question in everyday Korean, change nothing. Say the same sentence and let your voice rise at the end. There's no "do" or "does", and the order stays as it was. That's easy to say and easy to miss when listening, because the only signal is the last syllable.

Question words don't move either. English pulls "where" to the front, but Korean leaves it in the slot where the answer will go. In 어디에 가요? the word 어디 sits exactly where 학교 sits in 학교에 가요.

The short negative is one syllable, 안, and it goes directly in front of the verb, so everything else in the sentence comes before it. 못 sits in the same spot and means "can't". 안 says it doesn't happen or you're choosing not to, and 못 says something is stopping you.

There's also a longer negative that attaches to the end of the verb. Lesson 11 covers both.

Anything that describes a noun comes before it. For single words that matches English: 한국 음식 is Korean food, 제 친구 is my friend. An adjective needs a special ending to sit there (lesson 10), so 작다, to be small, becomes 작은 집, a small house.

The surprise comes with longer descriptions. Korean has no "who", "which" or "that" for joining clauses, so a whole clause goes in front of the noun as well. "The book I read yesterday" comes out as 어제 읽은 책, "yesterday read book".

That's why long Korean sentences feel front-heavy. The description comes first and you find out what's being described afterwards, with the verb still to come.