2 · Helping verbs and modal patterns
Feelings seen from outside: -아/어하다
describing what somebody else feels
-아/어하다 turns an adjective of feeling into a verb, so that you can say what somebody else feels or likes.
At a glance
- Remember
- My feelings are adjectives; yours, seen from outside, take -a hada.
- Form
- 좋다 → 좋아해요last vowel a or o
- Signal words
- -아/어하다
- 좋아하다
- 싫어하다
- -고 싶어 하다
- 을/를
- Trap
- Wrong:제 친구는 그 영화가 슬퍼요.Right:제 친구는 그 영화를 보고 슬퍼해요.
Your turn
10 exercises on this topic. Your answers are checked in the browser; none of them leaves your device.
The form
From the base form to the new form
Each row first says what the form expresses, then shows it in Korean: the base form before the arrow, the result after it.
| last vowel a or o | 좋다 → 좋아해요 |
| other vowels | 싫다 → 싫어해요 |
| a p-stem | 무섭다 → 무서워해요 |
| a stem in eu | 슬프다 → 슬퍼해요 |
| 하다 adjectives | 피곤하다 → 피곤해해요 |
| a wish | 가고 싶다 → 가고 싶어 해요 |
The rules one by one
The form this topic is aboutThe word that calls for it
An adjective of feeling describes the speaker's own state, or asks about the listener's.
저는 높은 곳이 무서워요.I am scared of heights.
For a third person, the adjective becomes a verb with -아/어하다.
제 동생은 높은 곳을 무서워해요.My younger brother is scared of heights.
What the feeling is about then takes 을/를 instead of 이/가.
아이들이 그 선생님을 정말 좋아해요.The children really like that teacher.
Somebody else's wish is -고 싶어 하다, written apart.
언니가 새 차를 사고 싶어 해요.My older sister wants to buy a new car.
Example sentences
민수 씨는 매운 음식을 좋아해요.Minsu likes spicy food.
우리 고양이는 목욕을 싫어해요.Our cat hates having a bath.
아이가 천둥소리를 무서워해요.The child is afraid of thunder.
할머니께서 손자를 정말 귀여워하세요.Grandma absolutely dotes on her grandson.
친구가 요즘 많이 피곤해해요.My friend seems really tired these days.
동생이 강아지를 키우고 싶어 해요.My younger sibling wants to have a puppy.
8 more example sentences
아버지는 커피를 별로 안 좋아하세요.My father doesn't really like coffee.
아이가 주사를 무서워해서 울었어요.The child cried because she was scared of the injection.
친구가 시험 결과를 보고 기뻐했어요.My friend was delighted when she saw her exam results.
그 학생은 발표를 부끄러워해요.That student is shy about giving presentations.
다들 그 소식을 궁금해해요.Everybody is curious about the news.
할아버지께서 손님이 오셔서 반가워하셨어요.Grandpa was glad to see the guests.
제 딸은 수학을 제일 재미있어해요.My daughter finds maths the most fun.
형이 혼자 사는 것을 힘들어해요.My older brother finds living alone hard.
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
슬퍼요 speaks from inside the sad person, so only the speaker can say it about themselves. For a friend, Korean describes what it sees: 슬퍼해요, “is sad, shows sadness”.
The full explanation
Read it all · about 1 min
Korean adjectives of feeling — 좋다, 싫다, 무섭다, 슬프다, 피곤하다 — describe the speaker's own inner state. 무서워요 means “I am scared” or, in a question, “are you scared?”. Nobody can feel somebody else's fear directly, so for a third person Korean describes what can be seen: the adjective becomes a verb with -아/어하다.
The stem takes -아/어 as in -아요/어요, and 하다 follows: 무섭다 → 무서워하다, 슬프다 → 슬퍼하다, 피곤하다 → 피곤해하다, 귀엽다 → 귀여워하다. The result is an ordinary verb: 동생이 개를 무서워해요, “my little brother is afraid of dogs”. What the feeling is about now takes 을/를.
Two of these verbs are so common that they are learnt as words of their own: 좋아하다, “to like”, and 싫어하다, “to dislike”. Compare 저는 이 노래가 좋아요, “I like this song (it is good to me)”, with 제 친구는 이 노래를 좋아해요. The first has a subject in 이/가, the second an object in 을/를.
The same happens to a wish. -고 싶다 is an adjective, “I want to”; for somebody else it becomes -고 싶어 하다: 동생이 한국에 가고 싶어 해요. When -아/어하다 is added to a phrase like this rather than to a single adjective, it is written as a separate word.
A closer look
Why Korean does not say “he is sad”
Korean grammar is careful about who can know what. The speaker knows their own feelings, and can ask about the listener's, but about anybody else they can only report what shows. -아/어하다 is the grammar of that report: it turns a feeling into behaviour.
There are other ways to soften a claim about somebody else's feelings: 슬픈 것 같아요, “she seems sad”, or 슬프대요, “she says she is sad”. What sounds odd is the bare adjective, as if the speaker could look inside the other person.
Exceptions and special cases (1)
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you speak about yourself in a story, describing how you behaved
the verb form is possible for yourself too: 저는 어릴 때 개를 무서워했어요.
저는 어릴 때 물을 무서워했어요.As a child I was afraid of water.
Looking back, the speaker can describe their own earlier behaviour from outside, as a habit or a reaction others could see.
Worth knowing (1)
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Asking the listener
A question about the listener's own feeling keeps the adjective: 무서워요?, “are you scared?”. The listener is the one who knows, so the question speaks from inside, like the answer.
괜찮아요? 많이 아파요?Are you all right? Does it hurt a lot?
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