How To Ask Questions In Korean: 3 Easy Ways

Do you want to learn Korean? Are you interested in asking questions in Korean? Are you aware of all the Korean question words? If not then don’t worry because in this blog we will walk you through all the ways that we can make questions. Here, you will learn Korean question words so that you can make questions and hold a Korean conversation. So let the learning begin. 시작 (sijag)!!!

 

Korean Language

The Korean language is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. The Korean language of South and North has minor differences which are sometimes extremely difficult for a non-native speaker. But the native Korean speakers understand each other easily. If you are learning Korean of South Korea, then the accent and words of North Korean might not be understandable for you but once you master this one, the other one will be easy for you as well.

Before Korean, Chinese was spoken widely in Korea and the Korean language had to face some resistance. But eventually, the language succeeded and the Korean people tend to speak Korean now. The elements of the Chinese language had not been eliminated completely and there are many words in Korean which are either Chinese or derived from the Chinese language. An example of this is the Sino-Korean numbers.

 

Questions In Korean

There are two main ways to form questions generally. The first one is by asking questions which can have yes, no, I don’t know as answers. The second type is asking for something other than yes or no. Those questions use the question words and need specific answers.

The sentence order in a Korean question for a simple question has the same subject-object-verb order. SOV is the shortened form of that and can help you remember the sentence order. You can also add adjectives and other adverbs to make complex sentences.

Example

The questions like “Are you happy?”, “Do you like this?”, “Is this your bag?”, “Are you the author of this book?” are yes/no questions. All of these questions can easily be answered with a yes or no. You can say; “I am happy”, “I like this”, “This is my bag”, “I am the author of this book” etc.

 

Yes And No Questions

For the first category, it is essential to have some vocabulary in Korean which can assist you in making Korean questions. Considering the English sentence structure, you might feel “ugh! do I have to learn another sentence order now? I haven’t even gotten over the one which I learned yesterday.”

Well, guess what? You don’t have to. Korean simple questions (questions without question words) follow the same word order. YES! the exact same word order. Now, you might be wondering, if Korean has the same word order then how would I know if someone is asking a question or telling me something?

A simple answer to that is you do have to make slight changes to change a sentence into a question. These changes are different for both written Korean and Oral Korean. For written Korean, the only thing you have to do is to add a question mark at the end of the question.

For oral Korean, you would have to change your tone. Our tones are usually calm when we are trying to tell someone something. It has an element of explanation to it instead of questioning. This is different for the questions. While asking questions in Korean, raising your voice is a common phenomenon (especially when one is shocked).

While asking questions you should give the impression to the listener that you want to know something. It should imply that you are trying to get some information. If your tone is monotone then the person that you are asking a question from might not be able to guess that. Putting emphasis and looking with inquisitive eyes can give the Korean speaker an idea that you are trying to know something.

Here is a table for you to learn some of these questions.

To answer these questions, you simply have to add the Korean words for yes or no. These two Korean words can help in answering your questions. You should know that adding yes to any answer does not need to change the overall sentence. But, adding no to an answer requires adding another word which will negate the sentence.

You can check out 5 Easy Ways To Say Yes/No/Ok In Korean to get more information about this.

Here is a table for all the easy Korean sentences with yes in them.

Questions With Possessive Pronouns

In Korean, some possessive pronouns are used. If a person is asking a simple question with a possessive pronoun for “you” in it, you simply replace it with the possessive pronoun for “me” as a response. Possessive pronoun for me is 나의 (naui) and your is 당신의 (dangsin-ui). Here is a table of some common questions in Korean using possessive pronouns.

 

Question Words

There are different question words in the Korean language. But mainly there are 5 common question words that form the basis of all the other question words. These are the words that are used the most to ask questions. Korean speakers commonly use these words either alone or in conjugation with the other words to form questions.

Five basic Korean question words are the 5 W’s (What, when, where, who and why) which are 뭐 (mwo), 언제 (eonje), 어디 (eodi), 누구 (nugu), 왜 (wae). Another basic question word in Korean is how 어떻게 (eotteoke). Along with these, there are some more Korean question words that are used to make questions.

Look at this table to learn basic question words with their examples.

 

Answering The Questions

There are different ways to address these questions. The answers can be in the form of words, questions again, phrases, or sentences which is the same for the questions.

Examples

Here are some of the sample sentences to form replies for the question words in the Korean language.

 

Korean Fun Corner

How fun it is to learn the sentences using songs from K-pop. Most people (especially young people) are learning Korean because they are inspired by K-pop or K-dramas. In our blogs, we bring you a section that will have the Korean words and grammar rules using examples from K-pop and K-dramas which will make learning fun and easy.

Here is a table for you with the questions in Korean songs having question words.

 

Language Tip

Try making friends with native Korean speakers so that by having conversations with them, you can get to learn many new words and sentence compositions. This will increase your vocabulary and you will not forget the words easily. You guys can have lessons together and enjoy learning.

You can teach your Korean friends how to speak English and help them with the English translation of many words and phrases in the Korean vocabulary list. Such friends can be a great resource for you. You both can learn a bit with each other and it will keep you motivated.

 

Wrapping Up

In this blog, you learned how to form a Korean question. In the same way, now you must also know how to answer a Korean question. Feel free to play around with words and make new sentences and questions to practice.

Having Korean as a new language can be difficult. Studying Korean without any lessons is perhaps impossible and definitely difficult. If you liked this blog then feel free to check out other blogs of Ling App by Simya Solutions. You can sign up to get more information. We also have blogs about delicious Korean food and funny phrases in Korean for casual conversations.

Good luck!