Korean Basic Ending 이에요 / 예요
For today, we will talk about the basic sentence-final ending in Korean 이에요 / 예요. First, 이에요 / 예요 is like the English “to be”. Let’s start with some examples:
저는 학생이에요. = I am a student.
저는 교수예요. = I am a professor.
Structure: Noun + 이에요 / 예요
You will probably ask: When should we use 이에요 and when should we use 예요? The answer is that you have to look at the noun preceding the ending. In the previous examples, 학생 and 교수 differs in whether they have a 팓침, the final consonant of a syllable block.
In 학생, 생 has a 팓침 of ㅇ, which is a consonant. In this case, we have to use 이에요. 학생이에요. In 교수, 수 doesn’t have a 팓침, as the last syllable is ㅜ, which is a vowel. In this case, we will use 예요. 교수예요.
Let’s look at some more examples:
저는 미국 사람이에요. = I am American. The last syllable of 사람 ends with a consonant ㅁ, so we will use 이에요.
우리는 친구예요. = We are friends. 친구 ends with a vowel ㅜ, so we will use 예요.
이에요 / 예요 is a sentence-final ending that follows a noun, and it acts like the English “to be”. If the noun ends in a consonant, we will use 이에요. If the noun ends in a vowel, we will use 예요.
