17/10/2017
Asking Questions in Korean
Asking questions in Korean, at first glance, is very easy. For the most part, asking questions in Korean without the use of a “question” word (who/what/when/where/why/how/how much/how many) is incredibly simple.
Asking questions in English is unnecessarily complicated. If I asked you the question “Do you like sports?” In English, what is the meaning of the word “do” in that sentence? In English, whenever we ask a question (without a question word), we need to include the words did/do/will to make the listener know that we are asking a question.
Did you go to the park?
Do you like sports?
Will you eat with us?
It is so confusing in English, and my two sentence explanation doesn’t really explain it very well. Luckily, this is not an English learning website! You are here to learn how to ask questions in Korean. Enough of this English nonsense.
In Korean, if you are asking a question that does not require the use of a question word (one more time: who/what/when/where/why/how/how much/how many) you don’t need to do anything structurally to make that sentence a question. All you need to do is raise the intonation of the end of the sentence to make it sound like a question. For example, if you want to say “My mother ate” you already know that you can say:
엄마는 먹었어요 = My mom ate
But if you want to ask somebody “did you eat?” You just raise the intonation of the end of the sentence to make it sound like a question:
엄마는 먹었어요? = (literally means “did mom eat?”)
Remember that Korean people rarely say the word “you,” so if you ask a question to the person you are talking to about the person you are talking to, you can just omit the subject of the sentence.
밥을 먹었어? = Did (you) eat?
집에 갔어? = Did (you) go home?
소식을 들었어? = Did (you) hear the news?
If you are talking to somebody and the subject of the sentence is not the person who you are talking to, you can just use the subject as normal. Also notice that regardless of the tense of the sentence (past/present/future) you don’t need to do anything special other than raise the intonation at the end of the sentence:
남동생은 울었어요? = Did your brother cry?
한국은 좋은 나라야? = Is Korea a good country?
엄마도 올 거야? = Will mom come too?
As I said, you don’t need to change anything structurally in these sentences to make them questions. There are, however, a few ways that you can change the structure of a sentence to make the sentence a question (if you want).
💥Using Question Words
Depending on which question word you are using, building a question can be really easy or really confusing. I will teach you the easy examples in this lesson (who, when, where, why) and the more confusing examples in the next lesson (what, how, how much/how many).
👉 Why (왜)
Why (왜) is probably the easiest question word in Korean. ‘왜’ is an adverb, which means it can be used/placed as an adverb in sentences. Many of the question words that you will learn in this lesson (and the following lesson) are adverbs. As you know, adverbs can be used very freely in sentences and do not have any specific location that they need to be used. However, the most common position for these adverb-question words is before the verb. If there are other adverbs in the sentence (including the negative “안”) the question word is usually placed first.
With these adverb-question words, you can typically just take a statement and change it into a question by inserting the word into the sentence. For example:
만화책을 좋아합니까? = Do you like comic books?
만화책을 왜 좋아합니까? = Why do you like comic books?
(저는) 한국어를 공부하고 있어요 = I am studying Korean
한국어를 왜 공부하고 있어요? = Why are you studying Korean?
(저는) 너무 빨리 먹었어요 = I ate really fast
왜 너무 빨리 먹었어요? = Why did you eat so fast?
(저는) 어제 학교에 안 갔어요 = I didn’t go to school yesterday
어제 학교에 왜 안 갔어요? = Why didn’t you go to school yesterday?
👉 왜 is also used to respond when somebody calls your name (because they want you for some reason). In English, we would say “what,” but in Korean, they say “왜.” For example:
Person 1: Play슬기야! = Seulgi!
Person 2: Play왜? = Why/what do you want?
Notice that saying “why” in English is unnatural. This is how they say it in Korean.
👉 When (언제)
The usage of ‘when’ (언제) is very similar to the usage of ‘왜’ in Korean. As an adverb, it can be used to ask “when” something happens. For example:
집에 갔어? = Did you go home?
집에 언제 갔어? = When did you go home?
집에 갈 거야? = Will you go home?
집에 언제 갈 거야? = When will you go home?
그 여자가 사라졌어요 = That girl disappeared
그 여자가 언제 사라졌어요? = When did that girl disappear?
낮잠을 잤어요? = Did you take a nap?
낮잠을 언제 잤어요? = When did you take a nap?
아빠가 왔어요? = Did dad come?
아빠가 언제 왔나요? = When did dad come?
💣 Particles like ~부터 and ~까지, which are often used to indicate from/until when something happens can be attached to 언제 to indicate that it is unknown “from/until when” something happens. For example:
어제부터 아팠어요 = I have been sick since yesterday
언제부터 아팠어요? = Since when have you been sick?
Notice that 어제 and 언제 are not the same word.
한국에서 내년까지 있을 거예요 = I will be in Korea until next year
한국에서 언제까지 있을 거예요? = Until when will you be in Korea?
작년부터 한국어를 공부했어요 = I have been studying Korean since last year
언제부터 한국어를 공부했어요? = Since when have you been studying Korean?
👉 언제 can also be attached to “이다” to ask “when” something is. In these cases as well, it replaces the noun that would normally be attached to 이다. For example:
결혼식은 내일이야 = The wedding is tomorrow
결혼식은 언제야? = When is the wedding?
방학은 다음 주야 = Vacation is next week
방학은 언제야? = When is vacation?
The grammatical principle ~든지 is commonly attached to 언제 to form 언제든지. For now, you can think of this simply as a word that means “whenever.” When you learn about the function of ~든지 in Lesson 106, you will understand how this meaning is formed.
👉 Where (어디)
어디 works very much like언제. It can be used to ask “where” something happened if the place is unknown. For example:
집에 가고 싶어요= I want to go home
어디 가고 싶어요? = Where do you want to go?
한국에 살아요 = I live in Korea
어디 살아요? = Where do you live?
Just like 여기, ~에 is often omitted from “어디.” 어디에서 is often contracted to 어디서.
More examples:
그것을 집에서 하고 싶어요 = I want to do that at home
그것을 어디서 하고 싶어요? = Where do you want to do that?
한국에서 왔어요 = I came from Korea
어디에서 왔어요? = Where are you from (from where did you come?)
👉 The particle ~까지 is commonly attached to 어디. ~부터 is not commonly attached to 어디 for the same reason that ~부터 is not commonly attached to a place, as described in Lesson 12. For example:
부산까지 가고 싶어요 = I want to go until Busan
어디까지 가고 싶어요? = How far/until where do you want to go?
지하철을 서울역까지 탈 거예요 = We will take/ride the Subway until Seoul Station
지하철을 어디까지 탈 거예요? = Until where will we ride the subway?
Like 언제, it can be used as the noun before 이다 to ask where something “is.”
Placing 어디 before 이다 is really only done if asking somebody directly where they are:
어디야? = Where are you?
Or when asking where a place is:
너의 집이 어디야? = Where is your house?
그곳이 어디야? = Where is that place?
학교가 어디예요? = Where is the/your school?
When asking where another person, or an object is, it is more natural to use 있다 in these sentence. For example:
친구가 어디에 있어요? = Where is your friend?
엄마가 어디에 있어요? = Where is mom?
펜이 어디에 있어요? = Where is the pen?
아빠가 어디에 있어? = Where is dad?
그 만화책이 어디에 있어? = Where is that comic?
These would be unnatural:
아빠가 어디야?
그 만화책이 어디야?
Just like 언제, there are of course more complicated ways that 어디 can be used. For now, this is good enough.
👉 Who (누구)
In Korean, 누구 has the function of a pronoun.
Actually, some of the ways you say 언제 and 어디 being used were as pronouns in Korean. I chose not to explain this to you because the definition of a pronoun in Korean and English is not exactly the same. 언제 and 어디 can act as pronouns in Korean, but this same usage would be called an adverb in English. I actually had an explanation typed out, but decided not to include it into this lesson because it makes things more confusing than they actually are. However, knowing that 누구 is a pronoun in English and Korean is helpful (if you know what pronouns are).
As a pronoun, 누구 can be used in the place of a noun in a sentence – that is, it can be used to replace the object, the subject or as a noun before 이다.
This is the same in English – as you can see in the following three examples:
Who will study Korean tomorrow? – ‘who’ is the subject of the sentence
Who will you meet tomorrow? – ‘who’ is the object of the sentence -“you” is the subject
Who is that person? = ‘who’ is ‘that person’ in the sentence
However, this is confusing in English because in all three cases “who” is the first word of the sentence regardless of its role.
In Korean, instead of always placing ‘who’ at the start of the sentence, it should be placed in the location of the subject (usually the start of the sentence), the object (usually somewhere in the middle of the sentence) or before 이다. I will show you an example of each:
In the third sentence below you can see an example of 누구 being used as a subject. The subject is underlined in each case. When 누구 is used as the subject of a sentence, it is changed to 누가.
너는 내일 한국어를 공부할 거야 = You will study Korean tomorrow
너는 내일 한국어를 공부할 거야? = Will you study Korean tomorrow?
누가 내일 한국어를 공부할 거야? = Who will study Korean tomorrow?
In the third sentence below you can see an example of 누구 being used as an object. The object is underlined in each case. The object particles can be used if 누구 is the object.
너는 내일 친구를 만날 거야 = You will meet a friend tomorrow
너는 내일 친구를 만날 거야? = Will you meet a friend tomorrow?
너는 내일 누구(를) 만날 거야? = Who will you meet tomorrow?
In the third sentence below you can see an example of 누구 being used before 이다:
그 사람은 너의 아버지야 = That person is your dad
그 사람은 너의 아버지야? = Is that person your dad?
그 사람은 누구야? = Who is that person?
