Hello! So first off, there is no exact 'word' equivalent for ~ 라고 in English. It's more like a phrase. Another thing you should understand is that 라고 is always written after a NOUN OR PHRASE. The basic construction would be (Noun+라고+Verb) So depending on the noun (lets say the noun is xyz) it can be translated as, "....is called xyz", "the thing/person that is called xyz", "it was/is xyz" (remember xyz is a noun) You can also use 라고 when you are talking about something you have heard. In that case it would be translated as "I heard that xyz". In a question,라고 could be used to say, "What did you say?", "What did xyz say?" or sometimes, "What was xyz called?" So here are some phrases "라고" would be used in: - They said that it was this. 이거라고 했어요. (이거: this 라고: the said that/ they called (it) 했어요: did) - They said that this was a doll. 이건 인형라고 했어요 (이거: this 인형: a doll 라고: the said that/ they called (it) 했어요: did) -What did he say? 뭐라고 말했어요? (뭐: what 라고: he called/said 말했어요: he spoke) -I heard that I won first place. 제가 일등이라고 들었어요. ( 제가: I 일등: first place 라고: i heard that/i heard that it was said that 들었어요: I heard) You must remember that 라고 is a modifier. That is why you will find that it often shares a similar meaning to the following verb. It is just put between the noun and verb to form the meaning, depending on the sentence, of "it is called", "i heard that" etc... I hope this improves your understanding! This is a really difficult concept to grasp because it's really different from English. However, if you watch a lot of Korean movies, videos etc you can see it being used in its natural context and learn it really easily! Thank you :D

to understand it better, you can directly translate -라고 as 'saying'. -라고 하다, for example, as 'to make/do the saying' (= to say) -라고 들리다 as 'to hear the saying' (= to hear that someone said something) though it may sound really weird in English, you'll get the whole concept at once and will be able to peak up the necessary nice-sounding English equivalents later. the pattern "Noun+(이)라고 + Verb" is normally used to convey the indirect speech. though, it may be the 'real' speech like in (1) and it may be constantly repeated word(s) by others like in (2) (1) we re-tell the sentence that 동해 씨 really said some time ago - 동해 씨가 학생이라고 했어요. = 동해 씨 said [that he is, or: that somebody else is] a student (2) we re-tell the word (the name, actually) which everyone says when speaking to 김려욱 or when mentioning 김려욱 in the conversation with someone else - 김려욱이라고 합니다. = [they] say 김려욱 [to me, or: to him] --> they call me (or: him) 김려욱 --> my (or: his) name is 김려욱 you can find more examples with -라고 here: <a href="http://www.livingincmajor.com/my-korean-grammar-usage-note-12-reported-speech-ii">reported_speech</a> hope it was helpful ))