A1
Word order — the verb comes last
How Korean word order works, why particles rather than position carry grammatical roles, and why subjects are so often left out.
Korean puts the verb at the end, and everything else in front of it.
저는 밥을 먹어요.
Jeoneun babeul meogeoyo.
I eat rice.
Literally: I — rice — eat. English fixes meaning by position, so the dog bit the man and the man bit the dog differ only in order. Korean marks each role with an ending, which frees word order for emphasis.
밥은 제가 먹어요.
Babeun jega meogeoyo.
The rice — I’ll eat it.
Same event, same endings doing the same work. Moving 밥 to the front makes it what the sentence is about.
What is actually fixed
- The verb is last.
- A particle attaches to the word it marks, with no space.
- A modifier comes before what it modifies.
The usual order of the middle is time, then place, then object — 어제 학교에서 친구를 만났어요 — but it is a tendency rather than a rule.
Subjects are usually dropped
If it is obvious who is meant, the subject disappears. 저는 on every sentence is one of the clearest marks of a beginner.
저는 학생이에요. 저는 한국어를 공부해요.
저는 학생이에요. 한국어를 공부해요.
Once the topic is established it carries forward. Repeating 저는 sounds like you are correcting someone about who you mean.
Sentences end in suspense
Tense, politeness and negation all live in the final verb, so a Korean sentence does not resolve until it stops — the same habit of listening that Japanese demands.
어제 친구하고 영화를 안 봤어요.
Eoje chinguhago yeonghwareul an bwasseoyo.
I didn’t see a film with a friend yesterday.
Here the negative arrives before the verb rather than inside it, which makes Korean slightly kinder than Japanese on this one point.