Lukas
Mixing speech levels within a sentence I sometimes come across sentences that sort of seem to mix speech levels within the sentence. For example, I often see that the topic is 나 but the sentence conjugates with 요. "나는 가방이 없어요." What is the rationale for this? How should I interpret a sentence like the one up above? 나 seem to suggest some intimacy but 요 does not.
Jul 22, 2014 7:45 AM
Answers · 5
2
저(는) means making youself lower than the addressee in order to show your respect toward the addresse. it's kind of humble version of 'I'. 나(는) is just neutral (but using it when talking to much elder or much more respected person than yourself can be quite rude). '요' means speaking politely in order to show your respect toward the addresse. and you just dropp '요' if you really are on close terms with your addressee - this is how you get the 'intimacy' you wrote about in your question. so, in the example Heesob Park provided, one'd rather not make yourself lower to show his(her) respect to an unfamiliar person which is younger than him(her), but one would add a polite ending in oder not to be rude toward his addressee. hope my comment was of some help ^^
July 22, 2014
1
That mixing speech levels is due to ambiguous position between Haeyo-che and Hae-che. It happened when someone talk to an unfamiliar person younger than himself.
July 22, 2014
"나는" in this phrase means "i" .. there are many ways to say "i" in korean depending on the phrase but the basic one is "나" "요" is this thing u add at the end of the sentence to make it more polite and formal for example you say "사랑해" "i love u" to your girlfriend but you say "사랑해요" to your mother .. got it .. when u talk to elders or strangers you simply add a "요" at the end :D
July 22, 2014
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