Every language has its grammar rules and every language has countless exceptions to those rules. Korean is no different and today we are going to start a little trip exploring Korean irregular verbs. Irregular verbs are important since they are often often used verbs.
You have rules and you have exceptions
When you are learning a language you will learn a lot of grammar rules. Those rules govern all aspects of the language such as spelling, word order, verb conjugation and many more things. However, most often there are also exception to many of those rules. Irregular verbs are probably something most people will struggle with because verbs are integral to any language. That is why I want to spend some time on Korean irregular verbs.
Korean irregular verbs are luckily for anyone learning Korean not like French irregular verbs. While French irregular verbs are a complete mess, Korean irregular verbs are quite easy to understand since they still have a sense of conformity. They simply have more little rules to take into consideration. This in no way means they are easy since it might be more difficult knowing which verb is irregular and which isn’t
7 Groups of Korean Irregular Verbs
Korean irregular verbs can be divided into groups, 7 groups to be precise. Each group is very different from each other and have their own unique rules, but once you get the hang of those rules you will find that these Korean irregular verbs are not so hard after all. You need to know them, though, since many of the irregular verbs are often used.
The 7 groups are:
- The ‘ㅡ’ irregular verbs
- The ‘ㄹ’ irregular verbs
- The ‘ㅂ’ irregular verbs
- The ‘ㄷ’ irregular verbs
- The ‘르’ irregular verbs
- The ‘ㅎ’ irregular verbs
- The ‘ㅅ’ irregular verbs
Mastering irregular verbs is simply a matter of plenty of practice. Once you use these Korean irregular verbs often you will find that they are not so difficult after all. To help you and myself I will spend the next seven weeks writing little articles on each individual group, explaining what to watch out for.
Learning Korean Verbs
Learning verbs is an important to master a language. In Korean verbs are even more important as they are either actions or descriptive (= adjectives). Therefore I started a Memrise course that purely focuses on Korean verbs. Currently this course has all the verbs that I mentioned during this Korean irregular verbs series, but I will keep updating it.
However, I will be updating this course from time to time and I could use all the help I can get. If you know any Korean verb you feel is really useful, leave it in the comments below. If you happen to know whether the verb is irregular do tell us what group it belongs to. I hope to learn a lot through you!
