\uc740\/\ub294 or \uc774\/\uac00? Oh noooooooooo! You\u2019re writing a sentence and suddenly you find yourself faced with this dreaded question. Not again! Maybe you\u2019ve been studying Korean for a little while and you\u2019ve learned about topic and subject markers, but when it comes to actually using them, it can be confusing. I think most people go through this, and I think it\u2019s partly because most resources introduce -\uc740\/\ub294 and -\uc774\/\uac00 by showing individual sentences, when really to understand how these particles work you need to see them in context in a conversation. I\u2019m no expert, but let me see if I can help a bit by presenting a short little story about someone\u2019s household and looking at the topic and subject markers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sentence 1:<\/strong> \uac00\uc871\uc740 -> the -\uc740 means our TOPIC is going to be my family. I\u2019m setting up the audience\u2019s expectation of what we\u2019re going to talk about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sentence 2:<\/strong> no -\uc740\/\ub294 or -\uc774\/\uac00 -> Since I haven\u2019t specified a subject here, we\u2019re still talking about the family. A sentence doesn\u2019t have<\/em> to include an -\uc774\/\uac00 or -\uc740\/\ub294!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sentence 3:<\/strong> \uac15\uc544\uc9c0\ub294 -> this -\ub294 means I’m shifting my TOPIC from the family in general to talk specifically about the previously-mentioned dog for a while. He\u2019s always hungry in the morning. The way this is said in Korean is by saying that your stomach<\/em> is hungry, so the dog is the topic (with -\ub294), but the stomach is the subject of the verb, so the stomach gets the subject marker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sentence 4:<\/strong> \uc5ec\ub3d9\uc0dd\uc774 -> this -\uc774 subject marker means I’m not changing the TOPIC (still talking about our hungry dog, and so no -\uc740\/\ub294), but specifying that my sister (with the -\uc774 subject marker, because she’s the one performing the verb) is the one who feeds him. Not me, not the neighbor, but my sister<\/strong> does it. If I used the topic marker here, I would be telling the listener that the dog isn\u2019t the topic anymore \u2026 that I wanted them to focus on my sister, instead. By using the subject marker, I\u2019m clarifying that she\u2019s the one who performs the action of feeding the dog, but without directing too much attention to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sentence 5<\/strong> gets a little more complicated in how it combines the topic and subject markers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sentence 6:<\/strong> \uadf8 \uba39\uc774\ub294 -> this -\ub294 means I’m changing the TOPIC again. I’m contrasting this food with the food my sister gives to the dog. Now I’m not just talking about things happening in my room\u2014I’m talking specifically about the food in my room, saying THIS food is the cat\u2019s, it’s not the dog’s. It’s my new TOPIC, so it gets the -\ub294.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes people interpret -\uc774\/\uac00 and -\uc740\/\ub294 as very similar, equal particles that you need to choose between when writing a sentence, but this is not the case! I think of that as being like comparing apples and oranges, because they actually serve completely different purposes in Korean sentences. The subject marker and topic marker play completely different roles in a conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The subject marker -\uc774\/\uac00 performs a purely grammatical function of pointing out which noun in a sentence is the subject<\/strong> of the verb. In short sentences, this might seem unnecessary (and so native speakers often leave it off), but in longer sentences with multiple clauses, it can be crucial to clarity! If you look through the sentences above, you\u2019ll see that -\uc774\/\uac00 are always attached to a noun that is the subject of a verb:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The topic marker -\uc740\/\ub294, on the other hand, performs a less rigid function in Korean sentences, highlighting the topic<\/strong> of conversation or directing the listener\u2019s attention. This has a lot of flexibility, and can allow you to emphasize whatever you want in your sentence! It doesn\u2019t have to be used with the noun that is performing the verb and can instead attach to other parts of sentences, including entire phrases or clauses! In Sentence 5, the topic marker -\ub294 is attached to the phrase \u201c\uc81c \ubc29 \uc548\uc5d0\u201d (inside my room). I\u2019m signifying that my topic here is stuff that exists in or happens inside my room. You could NOT, grammatically, use a subject marker -\uc774\/\uac00 here, because the inside of my room is not the subject of a verb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s always a correct grammatical place in a sentence for a subject marker. Your only<\/strong> choice with the subject marker is whether to include it or not\u2014since it isn\u2019t always necessary for your meaning to be clear\u2014but if you do<\/strong> include it, it can only be used with the subject of the verb. Whatever you attach the subject marker to is like the food<\/strong> ingredients in a dish, like you\u2019re saying, \u201cThis is a BEEF stew.\u201d Even if you don\u2019t say out loud<\/strong> that it\u2019s beef stew, beef will still be the main ingredient, the subject<\/strong> of the dish. (Using the subject marker -\uc774\/\uac00 in your sentence is like saying out loud, \u201cThis is a BEEF stew,\u201d clarifying for other people what the main ingredient is.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The topic marker is more like \u2026 I don\u2019t know \u2026 seasoning. It\u2019s like the salt in a dish, rather than the basic ingredients that are necessary. It determines the nuances, the flavor, beyond just the basic substance of the dish. Maybe it\u2019s a Polish beef stew with caraway seeds \u2026 maybe it\u2019s a Spanish beef stew with paprika \u2026 maybe it\u2019s a Vietnamese beef stew with ginger and lemongrass. It isn\u2019t a beef stew without the main ingredient being beef (in this analogy, the beef is the subject of the verb, and could therefore take the subject marker -\uc774\/\uac00), but the flavorings are much more optional and flexible, depending on the cook\u2019s preferences. When creating a sentence in Korean, you use topic markers to give flavor and nuance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Topic markers give that flavor to a sentence by placing subtle emphasis, implying contrast, etc. The topic marker is almost never grammatically necessary\u2014you can, after all, make a bland beef stew that\u2019s just beef, with no salt or spices. That would be a Korean sentence with no markers or with just the subject marker: bare bones, no nonsense. This is useful in a longer conversation, though, because you don\u2019t want every single phrase in every single sentence to be packed full of flavor! That would be overwhelming and distracting. You choose when to use the flavor-imparting topic marker when you want to draw people\u2019s attention to something specific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Okay, enough of that analogy. I hope it didn\u2019t just make it more confusing! I just wanted to try to clarify how the subject marker and topic marker have different vibes and serve different purposes: -\uc774\/\uac00 marks the beef in your stew of a sentence, -\uc740\/\ub294 is the paprika and lemongrass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you consider all of this and look again at the example sentences above, you can see that context is crucial to knowing when to use -\uc740\/\ub294 and -\uc774\/\uac00, because it’s all about the ebb and flow of the conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, Sentence 3 could be written a bunch of different ways, depending on exactly what meaning you wanted to convey. If you said you wanted to write the single sentence \u201cIn the morning, our dog is hungry\u201d in Korean, it would be hard to tell where to put a topic marker without any context. In our example here, I wrote it as \u201c\ub9e4\uc77c \uc544\uce68\uc5d0 \uac15\uc544\uc9c0\ub294 \ubc30\uac00 \uace0\ud30c\uc694,\u201d because we were changing the topic of conversation to begin talking about the dog we\u2019d previously mentioned. I was implying that I was probably going to say more about the dog after that, or that I was going to compare\/contrast the dog being hungry to the cat not<\/strong> being hungry. I was telling the audience what they could expect, moving forward \u2026 saying, \u201cSo \u2026 AS FOR OUR DOG, he\u2019s always hungry in the morning.\u201d But let me show one other way that particular sentence could be written here\u2014just by moving the topic marker\u2014and talk about how the nuances would be different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \ub9e4\uc77c \uc544\uce68\uc5d0\ub294 \uac15\uc544\uc9c0 \ubc30\uac00 \uace0\ud30c\uc694.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The subject of the hungry verb is still the dog\u2019s stomach (\ubc30\uac00), but if I attach the topic marker -\ub294 to \uc544\uce68\uc5d0 instead of \uac15\uc544\uc9c0, this sentence would now emphasize that I’m talking about the morning. Maybe the dog is only hungry in the morning, or maybe I’m about to start talking about stuff that happens in the morning. I’m announcing, “We’re talking about the MORNING now!” So if I wrote it that way, Sentence 4 would also be emphasizing that my sister feeds him IN THE MORNING, because our topic would still be morning until I use another -\uc740\/\ub294 topic marker. I could use as many subject markers as I wanted in a thousand following sentences, but as long as there was no other -\uc740\/\ub294, everyone would understand that I was still talking about mornings. I could write that President Obama likes arugula, and the audience would understand that I was meaning that he likes it IN THE MORNING, unless I used another topic marker. I could say that there are five rooms in my house, and the audience would be thinking, \u201cWell, okay, but \u2026 uh \u2026 what does this have to do with mornings?\u201d and they would be waiting for me to clarify the connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Returning to our example sentences, let\u2019s look at another place you could put the topic marker in the sentence about the hungry dog, and how the nuances would be different again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \ub9e4\uc77c \uc544\uce68\uc5d0 \uac15\uc544\uc9c0 \ubc30\ub294 \uace0\ud30c\uc694.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Here I\u2019ve moved the topic marker -\ub294 to attach it to \ubc30, the dog\u2019s stomach. This is a really weird sentence, because \u2026 why would I want to emphasize the dog\u2019s stomach? LOL. I guess maybe if we were going to be changing the topic of conversation to \u2026 I don\u2019t know \u2026 health problems with the dog\u2019s stomach? Or if we were contrasting that his stomach is hungry, but his pancreas isn\u2019t? LOL! I mean, in Korean you could write this sentence this way to imply these very unexpected and surreal meanings, if you wanted to, whereas in English you would need to use a bunch of additional words to get the same subtle meaning across. This is why topic markers are so powerful and elegant, because they allow you to imply a lot and direct your audience\u2019s attention just by adding a tiny particle in the right place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of this is why it’s difficult to explain -\uc740\/\ub294 vs -\uc774\/\uac00 by looking at just a single sentence in beginner lessons. A topic marker in a single isolated sentence generally doesn’t tell you a lot, because it\u2019s usually going to be indicating how our current sentence relates to other sentences either before or afterward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In any particular sentence, there are specific places where a subject marker is implied, even if it isn\u2019t there. Any time there\u2019s a subject of a verb, there\u2019s a hidden -\uc774\/\uac00 there, even if you don\u2019t choose to use it\u2014it\u2019s just part of how Korean grammar works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But topic markers \u2026 ah! Topic markers are never grammatically necessary, never implied or inferred, completely optional at the discretion of the speaker based on their own inclinations, thoughts, opinions, and intentions. Grammatically, you could leave off all the -\uc740\/\ub294s if you wanted to, but why would you? Subject markers are the meat and potatoes, but topic markers are the spice of life!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n
Apples and Oranges, Meat and Salt<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Some Analysis<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
In Conclusion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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