Did you know that Korean has something like a grammatical glue?
When forming compound verbs in Korean, the connective ending “-아/-어” works like glue. A bare verb stem usually needs this glue before attaching to another verb.
Long story short, if the verb stem ends with a positive vowel, add “-아.” For everything else, add “-어.”
Not sure what positive vowels are? Let’s go back to the origin of Korean vowels.
The horizontal stroke “ㅡ” represents the earth. The vertical stroke represents a person. And the short stroke originally symbolized the sky.
Now, when the sky is above the earth and to the right of a person, you get vowels like “ㅗ” and “ㅏ.” These two are considered positive vowels.
Let’s practice!
Take the verb “나다,” which is very important in Korean. Its core meaning is “to occur.” Something that was hidden or only potential now becomes visible.
Remove the infinitive ending, and you get the stem “나-.” Because “나-” ends with a positive vowel, we add the glue “-아.” That gives us “나아.” But since the vowel “ㅏ” is repeated, it simply contracts back to “나.”
Here are some compound verbs with the stem “나-“:
- 나가다 – 나가요 (to go out, to leave)
- 나오다 – 나와요 (to come out, to get out)
- 일어나다 – 일어나요 (to get up, to wake up
And that’s the glue between Korean verbs. Once you see it, you’ll never unsee it.
- 갈다 – 갈아요 (to change), 타다 – 타요 (to ride, to get on)
- 갈아타다 – 갈아타요 (to transfer)
- 갈아입다 – 갈아입어요 (to change clothes)
- 돌다 – 돌아요 (to rotate)
- 돌아가다 – 돌아가요 (to go back, to return)
- 돌아오다 – 돌아와요 (to come back, to return)
- 들다 – 들어요 (to get in)
- 들어가다 – 들어가요 (to enter, to go into)
- 들어오다 – 들어와요 (to come in)
- 오르다 – 올라요 (to get on, to rise)
- 올라가다 – 올라가요 (to go up, to ascend)
- 올라오다 – 올라와요 (to come up, to ascend)
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