Some of you may already know this, but many don’t — so let’s take a quick look.
To understand this, we first need to talk about subject honorific speech.
Don’t worry about all the complicated stuff.
Here’s the simple rule: just add “-으시-” or “-시-” after the verb stem.
Take the verb 있다.
Drop the closing ending “-다,” and you’re left with the stem “있-.”
Since it has a final consonant, you attach “-으시-.”
Now, let’s put it into the widely used “요-form.”
That gives us: 있으시어요.
Say it quickly, and it sounds like 있으셔요.
That’s the classic form.
But in modern Korean, you’ll hear 있으세요 much more often — I’m not exactly sure why, but that’s the trend.
Anyway, both 있으셔요 and 있으세요 are fine.
Remember from the previous video: 있다 can mean both “to have” and “to exist” in English.
In honorific speech, it splits:
- For “to have,” you use 있으세요.
- For “to exist,” you use 계세요.
That’s why in Korean greetings for “goodbye,” one of them is “안녕히 계세요,” which literally means “Stay peacefully.”
Here, we see that verb 계세요 again.
And one pronunciation note: 계 is usually pronounced lightly as [게].
It’s easier to say this way, and most Koreans don’t bother pronouncing it as [계] in everyday speech.
Let’s review:
How do you say “Do you have a minute?” It’s “시간 있으세요?”
How do you say “Where are you?” It’s “어디 계세요?”
Now you got it. Bye bye.
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