Possessives

IT’S MINE, IT’S MIIIINE HIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHI. Yes I thought that’s a proper opening of this chapter 😉. You can guess what we are going to learn, right? Yes, it’s possessive in the Korean language.

Of in Korean Language

First, let’s declare your possession in a fancy formal way. Maybe you won’t use it often in real conversations because it sounds a bit serious and formal. However, it helps you a lot to understand and memorize other possessives.

The first word of this tutorial is 의 [eui]. 의 is the almost same as ‘of + possessive pronoun’ in English.

You can also use it to say something like ‘the king of idiots’ which is technically not a possessive. One thing you have to be careful of is the translation order. In Korean, it’s backward. In English, it’s ‘friends of mine’. Then, in Korean, it’s ‘mine 의 friends’.

The second difference is that the Korean language doesn’t use the possessive pronouns with ‘of’. For example, ‘friends of mine’ becomes ‘I of friends’ in Korean language.

Possessive in Korean Language

의 sounds too formal sometimes, then how can we say possessives less formally? Of course, the Korean language also has possessive determiners such as ‘my’ or ‘your’ and those make your speech more like a real person speaking.

제 집이에요
(It) is my house

제 엄마예요
(She) is my mom

우리 나라
Our country
= My country. Koreans use our very often when they can say ‘my’. Because in the Korean mindset, ‘we’ comes first before ‘I’.

2nd / 3rd Person Possessives

The Korean language doesn’t have words for ‘his’, ‘her’. ‘their’. So, in this case, we use the same method as pronouns. ‘name + 네’.

However, it sounds a bit informal and too casual. How can we change it to something more formal? We have three options.

1st, use honorifics. honorific of 집 is 댁.

2nd, drop 네 and just say ‘name + title + noun’. Oddly, it sounds less casual and more natural and suitable in formal situations.

3rd. Of course, you can use ‘의. ‘의’ is usually not used in conversations because that’s too formal. But we need that ‘too formal’.

It’s Mine!

The Korean language doesn’t have possessive pronouns such as mine, yours. So we use ‘것’ instead which means ‘thing’ or ‘stuff’. The Korean language works simpler with this right?.

If you want to say ‘mine’, then just say ‘my 것’ like ‘that car is my 것’. That’s how the Korean language works.

However, 것 sounds a bit too formal sometimes. You can use 거 or 꺼 instead. 꺼 is more casual between them.

Questions

But how can we say it’s not mine? How can we say things in negative forms? Let’s jump into the next tutorial and find out! Also, if you liked the tutorial, join us Patreon today! We’re waiting for you!