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Articles
Korean has no articles. A bare noun is "the book", "a book" or "books", and the sentence around it says which:
책 읽어요. — "I'm reading a book / the book / books."
Two other parts of the grammar do the work an article does in English, and one of them has no English equivalent at all.
The particles 은/는 and 이/가
The topic particle 은/는 marks what the sentence is about — old information, the thing already in play — which is most of what "the" does. The subject particle 이/가 introduces something new, or picks it out — closer to "a" or to stressed "it's the X":
| Korean | gloss |
|---|---|
| 개가 왔어요. | A dog came. (new on the scene) |
| 개는 밖에 있어요. | The dog is outside. (the one we know about) |
| 누가 왔어요? — 친구가 왔어요. | Who came? — A friend / my friend came. (the answer is the new thing) |
The form depends on the last sound of the noun: 은 / 이 after a consonant (책은, 책이), 는 / 가 after a vowel (개는, 개가). This pair is the single hardest thing in Korean grammar for an English speaker, and the closest it has to an article system.
"The one I mean": 이 그 저
The demonstratives go before the noun, and there are three distances, as in Japanese and Vietnamese:
| Korean | gloss |
|---|---|
| 이 책 | this book (near me) |
| 그 책 | that book (near you; or the one we mentioned) |
| 저 책 | that book over there |
그 is also the ordinary way to say "the … I was talking about": 그 사람 "that person / the person".
"A": 한 + classifier, or 어떤
For "one, a single", the number 한 with a classifier follows the noun:
책 한 권 — a book (one volume) · 사람 한 명 — one person · 커피 한 잔 — a coffee (one cup)
For "a certain, some … or other", 어떤 goes in front: 어떤 사람 "some person, a certain man".
When to use nothing
Generic statements and anything obvious take the bare noun, and the noun is often left out entirely:
고양이는 생선을 좋아해요. — "Cats like fish." 먹었어요? — "Did (you) eat (it)?"
The rule of thumb is the Vietnamese and Chinese one: reach for 이/그/저 when "which one" matters, for 한 + classifier when "one" matters, and otherwise say nothing.
If you speak Vietnamese
이/그/저 are này/đó/kia — the same three distances, but in front of the noun rather than behind it. The classifiers match too (권 is cuốn, 명 is người, 마리 is con), with the number and classifier after the noun (책 세 권) instead of before it (ba cuốn sách). Vietnamese has nothing like 은/는 versus 이/가.
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