🇰🇷 Lesson 9: Particles of Place, Time & People

🧭 The Big Idea: Prepositions That Come After

In English, little words like to, at, from and with go before the noun: "to school", "at the library", "with a friend". Korean does the same job with particles that stick to the end of the noun. That's why linguists call them postpositions. So "to school" is literally "school-to": 학교에. "With a friend" is "friend-with": 친구하고.

You have already met four particles. In Lesson 5 you learned the topic particle 은/는 and the subject particle 이/가, and in Lesson 7 the object particle 을/를. Those tell you who does what. The particles in this lesson answer the other big questions of a sentence: where? when? to whom? with whom? from when until when? Once you have them, your sentences stop being "I eat rice" and start being "I eat rice with my sister at a restaurant at 7."

📍 에 — To, At, In (Destination, Location, Time)

에 is the "point" particle. It marks a point you move toward, a point where something simply is, or a point in time. It never changes shape — 에 attaches after both vowels and consonants.

1. Destination (with movement verbs)

2. Location (with 있다 / 없다)

3. Time

🏃 에서 — At (Where Action Happens) & From

에서 also attaches to places, but it has a different personality. 에 is a static point; 에서 is a stage where something happens. If someone is doing something at a place — studying, eating, working, meeting — use 에서. Like 에, it never changes shape.

에서 has a second job: "from" a place — the starting point of movement.

에 vs 에서 side by side

🎁 에게 / 한테 / 께 — To a Person

When the target is a person or animal (giving to, calling, sending to), Korean switches from 에 to a people particle. 에 is for places and things; 에게 is for living beings.

에게서 / 한테서 — From a Person

Add 서 and the direction flips: from someone. Compare 에서 (from a place) — the 서 is the same "from" idea.

➕ 도 (Also) & 만 (Only)

도 means "also / too" and 만 means "only / just". Both attach directly to the noun they focus on.

🤝 With & And: 하고 / 와·과 / (이)랑

Korean has three ways to say "with" (someone) or "and" (between two nouns). They mean the same thing; they differ in register, like "and" vs "as well as" in English. Add 같이 (together) for extra clarity: 친구하고 같이.

⏱️ 부터 … 까지 & 에서 … 까지 — From … Until

까지 means "until / up to / as far as". Pair it with a starting particle: 부터 for a starting time, 에서 for a starting place.

📦 있어요 / 없어요 — There Is, I Have

있다 is one of the most useful verbs in Korean because it covers two English ideas: "there is / to be somewhere" and "to have". Its opposite is a separate word, 없다. The thing that exists (or that you have) takes 이/가.

You'll soon notice 있다 hiding inside common words: 맛있어요 (tasty — "flavour exists") and 재미있어요 (fun — "fun exists"). Their opposites use 없다: 맛없어요, 재미없어요.

🗺️ Position Words + 에

English says "on the desk", "under the chair". Korean builds it as Noun + position word + 에 — literally "desk's top-at". The position words are nouns, so the order is always: the reference object first, then the position, then 에.

💬 Dialogue: Where Are You?

Spot the particles: 에 for being somewhere and for a clock time, 에서 for studying and meeting, 까지 for "until", 도 for "too", and 만 for "only". Notice also that 만나요 here works like "let's meet" — Korean often uses the plain polite present as a suggestion (more in Lesson 17).

🇰🇷 Cultural note — "Meet me at Exit 11." Seoul runs on its subway, and a classic way to set a meeting point is a numbered station exit: 강남역 11번 출구 앞에서 만나요 ("Let's meet in front of Gangnam Station Exit 11"). Korean addresses and directions also move from big to small — country, city, district, building — so you'll hear strings of place nouns joined by position words and 에 all the time.

If these feel like a lot of tiny tags to juggle, that's normal. Every "wrong" particle you produce is feedback that sharpens your ear — learners who make lots of particle mistakes early usually get them right sooner, because they're actually using them.

❓ Common Questions

✏️ Practice

🧠 Check Your Understanding

🔮 Looking Ahead

You can now place people and things in space and time. In Lesson 10: Negation & Asking Questions you'll learn to say what you don't and can't do (안 가요, 못 가요) and to ask all the big questions — 어디, 언제, 누구, 왜 — many of which slot right into the particle patterns you just learned: 어디에 가요? 누구하고 먹어요?