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Formality and politeness is baked into Korean and you are basically always speaking at the right formality unless you ignore the rules. Your relationship to wh

Formality and politeness is baked into Korean and you are basically always speaking at the right formality unless you ignore the rules. Your relationship to who you're speaking to (and who you are referring to if you speak about anyone else) changes the grammar of the sentence. The grammar changes mostly manifest in different suffix endings.

MichaelZuo 4y ago
How do noble or formal titles work then? It seems very unlikely to just be a suffix ending.
- famouswaffles 4y ago
  The rules for how you speak to people and how you address people you are speaking about are different. The whole thing is a bit more complex than suffix changes alone especially with more out there titles but generally speaking, I think you've seen a bit on how the endings would change depending on your relationship to the hearer. For the latter(addressing people you're speaking about) For instance, You would basically never call an acquaintance just by name Take the name 김영철 If you were on relatively equal social standing, you would generally address 김영철 as 김영철 씨 or 영철 씨 If you wanted to take it a step further in respect, you would replace 씨 with 님 For a senior in age or experience in say the workplace, it would become 선배 but this can be used to address the person on its own without the name attached. There are also different words for how you would address different members of the family. Unlike in English, you would basically never call an older brother or sister by their actual name. It's more a generic brother or sister word that changes depending on if the speaker is male or female. 오빠 - female referring to older brother 형 - male referring to older brother 누나 - male referring to older sister 언니 - female referring to older sister For royalty, there'll be different titles for different members of the royalty.
- famouswaffles 4y ago
  Forgot to mention. The brother/sister words don't necessarily need to be referring to an actual brother or sister. They can be used endearingly to refer to older males/females you are close to. 오빠 can be used somewhat flirtingly/romantically as well

MichaelZuo 4y ago

How do noble or formal titles work then? It seems very unlikely to just be a suffix ending.

famouswaffles 4y ago
The rules for how you speak to people and how you address people you are speaking about are different. The whole thing is a bit more complex than suffix changes alone especially with more out there titles but generally speaking, I think you've seen a bit on how the endings would change depending on your relationship to the hearer. For the latter(addressing people you're speaking about) For instance, You would basically never call an acquaintance just by name Take the name 김영철 If you were on relatively equal social standing, you would generally address 김영철 as 김영철 씨 or 영철 씨 If you wanted to take it a step further in respect, you would replace 씨 with 님 For a senior in age or experience in say the workplace, it would become 선배 but this can be used to address the person on its own without the name attached. There are also different words for how you would address different members of the family. Unlike in English, you would basically never call an older brother or sister by their actual name. It's more a generic brother or sister word that changes depending on if the speaker is male or female. 오빠 - female referring to older brother 형 - male referring to older brother 누나 - male referring to older sister 언니 - female referring to older sister For royalty, there'll be different titles for different members of the royalty.
famouswaffles 4y ago
Forgot to mention. The brother/sister words don't necessarily need to be referring to an actual brother or sister. They can be used endearingly to refer to older males/females you are close to. 오빠 can be used somewhat flirtingly/romantically as well