Conjugations: Honorifics (Respectful version)

conjugation concentration verbs Feb 19, 2023

Okay so get this.

해, 해요, 하세요

All three of these would all translate to 'do' in English.

But they obviously LOOK different, right? So they must all mean different things.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that formality and respectful are the two most important aspects of Korean culture.

And it's reflected in the language, which of course is a bit of a nightmare for an English-speaker to understand.

If you've studied Korean before, you may have heard of honorifics before. I like to call this the respectful version, because it's the 'respectful' way of address verbs and adjectives then they belong to someone you speak to formally.

Don't get confused though! Formal and respectful are two different things!!

A formal sentence will end in a 요 but this doesn't make it respectful!

Check out this video explanation on the Respectful variation first.

The 4 foundations of Verb Conjugations.

These are the 4 most important Verb Conjugations we need to master before learning the fun stuff.

하다
해
해요
하세요

The kicker here is that they all mean 'do' and are all present-tense.

Across all of them, 3 meanings are shared:

Question - Are you? Do you?
Statement - I am, he/she is , they are
Command - Do the thing!

So the difference isn't in the meaning. It's in the premise of the situation it's being said.

It depends on who you are talking TO and who you're talking ABOUT - and it's important to understand that these are 2 separate points and not the same thing.

Table of Respect

Here's something I've created, called the 'Table of Respect' to help you out.

Choose a column depending on who you're talking TO and the row depending on who you're talking ABOUT.

You should be left with one box where it has a TICK with the cross-overs. And voila - that's the variation you need to use.

Once you familiarize yourself with this, you'll be able to take a shortcut and just ask yourself:

Who am I talking to? (determines the 요 on the end)
Who am I talking about? (determines the 세요/셨어요)

Activity

Figure out the Respectful version of all of these following Verbs from Last week.

Now think about what they MEAN - and don't say "do, go, come". You need to translate them into an English sentence - because that exactly what they are in Korean.