Free Korean for Dummies by Wang. Jungwook.; Lee Hong Page B

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    Chapter 2: The Nitty-Gritty: Basic Korean Grammar and Numbers
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    Dropping understood words
    In spoken English, people drop words from
    manna seo bangawoyo (man-na-suh ban—
    their sentences all the time. They will shorten
    ga-wo-yo). (I) am glad to meet (you)
    “Will you come over to my house today.” to
    Led Zeppelinuen? (Led Zeppeli-neun?)
    “Come over.” “Are you leaving the office?” to
    (What about) Led Zeppelin?
    “Leaving?”, “Were you also a part of this,
    Brutus?” to “Brutus?” We can see that we can
    Charlesreul ? (Charlesreul?) (Who did what
    drop huge parts of a sentence without a break—
    to/ What happened to ) Charles?
    down of communication. Of course, this is only
    Saranghaeyo (sa-rang-hae-yo). (I/you/he/
    when the speakers can tell what is being said
    she/it/they) love/ loves (something or
    from the context of the conversation.
    someone).
    Koreans do the same thing. Only dropping
    These examples might make you wonder if
    words is a little more frequent in daily conver—
    Koreans spend most of their days scratching
    sation. Koreans are particularly fond of dropping
    their heads trying to figure out what the other
    personal pronouns and other words that they
    person just said. Although it is fun to imagine,
    anticipate their listeners will understand, as in
    the truth is this happens less often than you
    these examples:
    would expect, but if it ever does, Koreans are
    quick to ask what they just missed, so don’t be
    ashamed to ask questions.
    Korean gets around this problem by adding particles at the end of each noun that marks or indicates what role a word plays within the sentence. Here, the particle for the performer of the action is -ga , the subject marker, and the particle for the action receiver is -reul , the object marker. Hence, we can see that both of the following sentences mean Eric drinks juice: Eric- ga juice- reul drink- haeyo
    juice- reul Eric- ga drink- haeyo
    Sentence particles
    Sentence particles are difficult to translate consistently into English because they mark what role a word plays within a sentence as opposed to having an explicit meaning. And hence, a single particle can be translated in more than one way given a different context. For example, the particle - eseo specifies when or where a verb takes place, hence, “Eric drinks juice at the market,”
    “Oh, the dress is elegant,” and “I warm up in the swimming pool” are translated as “Eric- ga juice- reul market- eseo drink- haeyo ,” “Oh~ dress- ga elegant-haeyo,” and “ juneun swimming pool- eseo , warm-up- haeyo .”
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Part 1: Getting Started
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    Common particles
    Common particles include i / ga (subject market), eun / neun (subject marker), eul / reul (subject marker), e / esu (from), kkaji (to/until), euro (to), buteo (from) and ui (indicates possession). This list of common particles is by no means comprehensive, but much daily conversation can be made by using these particles alone. The role of particles is largely determined by what kind of sentence the particle is used in.
    Asking Questions
    To make an informal polite sentence into a question all you have to do is raise the tone of your voice in a rising intonation at the end of the sentence.
    Think for a second of how you could turn “Asking a question in Korean is easy,” into a question in English. One way would be by moving the “is” to the beginning of the sentence, which would give you “Is asking a question in Korean easy?” The other would be by raising the tone of your voice at the end of a sentence, like asking “Asking a question in Korean is easy?”
    If you were given the statement in informal polite Korean, such as hangugeoro jilmuneul mandeuneun geosi swiwoyo ( han-goo-guh-ro jil-moon-eul man-deu-neun guh-shee shee-wo-yo; Asking a question in Korean is easy) all you have to do is use the same tone of voice as when you would when you say “Asking a question in