Personal pronouns are another element of the Korean language that beginner learners might find confusing. First of all, they usually come in at least two versions: more polite and less polite. So just like speech levels, each one is appropriate for specific circumstances. However, the real tricky part is that Koreans don’t use pronouns as often as English speakers do. In fact, there are plenty of sentences in Korean that don’t have any at all and function just fine. So for Korean beginners, it’s quite common to wonder which pronouns to use and when to use them.

While learning Korean, it’s important to remember that South Korea is a hierarchical society. There’s an emphasis on age and status, and you really need to pay attention to how you speak to others. This can be hard for native English speakers because we don’t have to do this – there are times when we’re mindful of our word choices and phrasing, but our grammar and sentence structure don’t change depending on whom we’re talking to. This isn’t the case in Korean, where there are very specific speech levels and verb endings depending on the situation and/or your relationship to the person you’re speaking with. Also known as politeness levels, these can be very confusing and stressful for beginning Korean learners – so I’m going to try and break them down as much as possible.