Describing

Korean Basic Conversation 2

Chapter 4 · Describing People & Things

🎨 Describing People & Things — 사람과 물건 묘사하기

You can now talk about your day, your hobbies and your plans. This chapter teaches you to describe: people (tall, kind, funny), things (big, small, expensive, pretty) and colours. You will also meet your first past-tense forms (재미있었어요, "it was fun"), which Chapter 9 teaches in full. This is the last chapter with a romanization line under every dialog line: from Chapter 5 on, dialogs carry a short "Hard words" note instead, while the tables keep the "Say it" column.

🗝️ Key Phrases — 중요한 표현

🔤 Three Descriptive Words — 형용사

Korean has no separate adjective ending: a word like 크다 ("to be big") conjugates exactly like a verb.

The -요 rule: if the last vowel of the stem is ㅏ or ㅗ, add -아요 (작다 → 작아요); otherwise add -어요 (길다 → 길어요); -하다 words become -해요 (친절해요). Stems ending in ㅡ drop it: 크다 → 커요, 예쁘다 → 예뻐요, 바쁘다 → 바빠요 ("busy").

🧱 Five Tools for Describing

1. A person's features: 이/가 + description

In Korean you often say that a person's feature is big, long or short: 키가 커요 ("he's tall", literally "height is big"), 머리가 길어요 ("her hair is long"). The feature takes 이/가, and the person can be added first with 은/는: 친구는 키가 커요 (Korean Grammar 1, chapters 3 and 4).

잘생겼어요 looks like a past tense but is the normal way to say "(he) is handsome". 귀엽다 is a "ㅂ-irregular" word (귀여워요, not 귀엽어요); Chapter 6 explains the pattern, so just learn it as a word for now.

2. Joining descriptions — 그리고, -고 and -지만

Chain two descriptions with -고 (Chapter 1): 크고 예뻐요 ("big and pretty"). To start a new sentence with "and", use 그리고. For "but", attach -지만 to the stem of the first word: 작지만 깨끗해요 ("small but clean"). A looser "but / by the way" at the start of a sentence is 그런데 (as in Chapter 2). -지만 never changes with the vowel, so it is the easiest ending in Korean.

3. A describing word before a noun — -(으)ㄴ

To say "a big bag" or "a quiet person", put the describing word before the noun. After a vowel stem add -ㄴ; after a consonant stem add -은; 있다 / 없다 words use -는.

4. Colours — 색깔

Ask 무슨 색이에요? ("what colour is it?"). Colour nouns end in 색 ("colour"); to use one before a noun, take the form in the table: 빨간색 가방 ("a red bag").

5. A first look at the past — -았/었어요

To say how something was, replace the -아요/-어요 ending by -았어요/-었어요: 좋아요 → 좋았어요 ("it was good"), 재미있어요 → 재미있었어요, 멋있어요 → 멋있었어요. For -하다 words it is -했어요, and 어때요? becomes 어땠어요? ("how was it?"). Use these ready-made forms for reacting to a film, a meal or a trip; Chapter 9 teaches the whole pattern.

📖 Vocabulary — 어휘

✍️ Try It Yourself — 연습

Say each answer out loud first, then click to check.