Korean Demonstratives
#korean · notes · highly likely
As I was going through my Anki deck for Korean vocabulary, I wondered whether there’s a system for demonstratives in the language like in Japanese. I’ve been seeing the pattern in words but I decided to write it down explicitly.
Korean indeed has a similar and pretty elegant system for demonstrative words:
- 이 (i) — near the speaker (“this”)
- 그 (geu) — near the listener, or something previously mentioned. (“that”, “that thing we’ve been talking about”)
- 저 (jeo) — far from both speaker and listener (“that over there”)
It’s combined with various concepts:
| 이 (i) | 그 (geu) | 저 (jeo) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| + 것 (thing) | 이것 (this thing) | 그것 (that thing) | 저것 (that thing over there) |
| + 사람 (person) | 이 사람 (this person) | 그 사람 (that person) | 저 사람 (that person over there) |
| + 곳 (place) | 이곳 (this place) | 그곳 (that place) | 저곳 (that place over there) |
The everyday location words, though, are a separate and irregular set:
- 여기 (yeogi) — here
- 거기 (geogi) — there (by the listener)
- 저기 (jeogi) — over there
I read about the etymology of these words and they seem to be historically fixed words rather than words in “이/그/저 plus a reusable suffix” pattern.