Few days ago my posting is about past tense form of word. As we all know Korean communicates in some level of politeness. Today what I have learned is to form honorific past tense of a word. It would be helpful to know how to derive the honorific base and infinitive of the word first, check this link to review it.
Similar to previous post on forming past tense of the word, the honorific past tense is derived using the same progression:
- Base
- Honorific Base – formed by adding 으시 (consonant ending words) or 시 (vowel ending words) to the base form.
- Honorific Infinitive – formed by adding ㅓ to the base honorific form therefore 으시 becomes 으셔 and 시 becomes 셔.
- Past Honorific Base – add ㅆ to the honorific infinitive form
- Past Honorific Infinitive – add ㅓ to the past honorific base
- Past Honorific Polite – add 요 to the past honorific infinitive
Now let’s have a sample:
- Base – let’s use the word 가 (ka) which means go
- Honorific Base – 가시 (kashi)
- Honorific Infinitive – 가셔 (kasyeo)
- Past Honorific Base – 가셨 (kasyeoss) remember final consonant ㅅ and ㅆ are swallowed during pronunciation therefore the honorific infinitive and past honorific base may have the same pronunciation.
- Past Honorific Infinitive – 가셨어 (ka-syeo-sseo) this already means gone or left
- Past Honorific Polite – 가셨어요 (ka-syeo-sseo-yo)
Therefore ‘sat’ which is the past tense of the word ‘sit’ will be 앉으셨어 (an-ju-syeo-seo) add 요 then it becomes honorific polite ending verb 앉으셨어요 (an-ju-syeo–seo-yo).
It Started with Hangul 