We love talking to each other and we love talking about what others are saying. In technical terms we would say that is quoting someone. In Korean there are a few ways to quote someone and today I am focusing on the indirect quotation.

He says and I quote

As social animals we utterly enjoy talking to each other and often while talking we are even referring to previous conversations. How often do you not use something in the vein of: “Martha said Jim got fired for being incompetent”. I think we all say something similar everyday, not only to gossip, but for a myriad reasons. In grammar, this is called quotation and knowing how to do it will hugely increase what you can talk about in any language.

In Korean there are three ways to quote someone:

  • The direct quotation
  • The indirect quotation
  • The contracted indirect quotation

I want to spend a few weeks on mastering these topics of how to quote someone in Korean. I will write a similar post like this for the direct and contracted indirect quotation. Though the latter might be something for the distant future. Now I want to first with indirect quotation. Indirect quotation is used often in Korean daily conversations, because it is a lot easier on the tongue. However, indirect quotation has many forms that are all used in different scenarios so it might take a while before I master all of them.

More than 하다

While the charts might show only 하다 as part of the indirect quotation, you can use a lot more verbs than just that one. There are many other verbs you can use when using indirect quotations such as: 말하다 (to say), 물어보다 (to ask), 전하다 (to tell), 듣다 (to hear; to listen). These are but a few, there are still a lot more verbs you can use instead of 하다 making your language so much more colorful.

Charts of Indirect Quotation

Here are two charts I made with all the various forms related to indirect quotation. There are many forms and they all have different use. The charts might scare you, but it is far easier than you might expect. Mastering this is just a matter of time and plenty of practice.

As always, if you thought this was helpful or you want to point out one of my silly mistakes, then leave it in a comment. I always enjoy receiving some feedback.

[one_half last=”no”]Indirect Quotation in Korean Chart[/one_half][one_half last=”yes”]Indirect Quotation in Korean Chart[/one_half]

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