Exchange Information, Opinions and Experiences in Korean
What this domain tests
You must be able to give and request factual information, swap opinions and narrate personal experience in Korean, using register-appropriate endings and accurate tense. Core concepts: the speech levels 합니다/해요/해 (formal polite, informal polite, intimate), tense marking (았/었 past, -겠- and -(으)ㄹ 것이다 future), honorific infix -(으)시- for subjects deserving respect, and particles that mark grammatical role (은/는 topic, 이/가 subject, 을/를 object, 에/에서 location, 에게 recipient).
Traps to watch
- Register mismatch: mixing 해요 and 해 in one turn, or using plain -다 to a teacher. Questions often ask which ending suits a given listener.
- Tense in reported or subordinate clauses: Korean marks tense on the embedded verb, so past-in-past needs 았/었 in the quoted clause.
- Particle confusion: 에 for destination/time, 에서 for action location and source; 에게 vs 한테 (한테 is colloquial).
- Honorific overreach: -(으)시- refers to the subject, not the listener. If you respect the listener but describe your own action, do not add 시.
- Numbers: native Korean numbers for counters like 명, 개, 시(hour); Sino-Korean for 분(minute), 원, 년, 월, 일.
Rule of thumb
Match the ending to the relationship, then check the subject: if the subject outranks you, the verb takes -(으)시-. Worked example: describing a teacher's past action to a friend - 선생님께서 어제 학교에 가셨어요. Here 시 marks the respected subject (teacher), 었 marks past, and 어요 keeps polite distance from the friend.
Practice strategy
Build short dialogues and rewrite them at three speech levels; this trains the register instinct that exam items reward.