The last of the irregular verbs in our Korean irregular verbs series are the ㅅ irregular verbs, irregular verbs with ㅅ as the last consonant in their stem.
Irregular Spelling Exception
We have spent a long time talking about irregular Korean verbs, but we have reached the end in the series with the final group of verbs, the The last of the irregular verbs: the ㅅ irregular verbs. Like all previous irregular verbs, this group is named after the final consonant of its verb stem which is a ㅅ.
As most irregular verbs, the ㅅ irregular verbs start acting weird when they are used with verb endings starting with a vowel. If that happens, these verbs will omit the ㅅ. When the verb ending starts with a consonant, however, the verbs will act like any other regular verb.
However, the irregularities do not stop there. This will create an additional irregularity, a spelling irregularity. Normally when a verb stem ends with a vowel and the verb ending starts with a vowel these vowels combine. When dealing with ㅅ irregular verbs this does not happen, the vowels do not combine. This behavior, of course, will make it very easy to spot these verbs.
- 배우다 + 어요 = 배워요 > Regular verb; vowels combine.
- 붓다 + 어요 = 부어요 > ㅅ irregular verb; vowels do not combine.
The ㅅ irregular verbs are a limited group of irregular verbs with the extra difficulty since quite few verbs that may look like a ㅅ irregular verb are in fact quite regular. Some of the regular ㅅ verbs are: 벗다 (to take off), 웃다 (to laugh) and 씻다 (to wash).
The ㅅ irregular verb chart
The Final List
As we end our journey exploring the Korean irregular verbs, so will I end making the short lists with the irregular verbs of those groups. The final list short list is reserved for the ㅅ irregular verbs. The verbs I chose for this list are: 잇다, 낫다, 붓다, 긋다, 젓다 and 짓다. As always you can learn these with me using this Memrise course.
Now that I am wrapping this series up I also created a long Memrise course with all the verbs that I have mentioned during this series. I hope the longer extra long Memrise course will help you expand your vocabulary. If you know any Korean irregular verb I have not mentioned tell me in the comments below and I will add it to the list. Let us make our Korean verb knowledge great again!
