To begin with, take a look at the following examples:
- 우리는 교실 안에 있어요.
We’re in the classroom. - 그 사람은 학교에 없어요.
He’s not at school.
Korean uses the particle 에 to locate things in space. This single particle 에 conveys the meaning carried by several different English prepositions relating to general location. Perhaps the hardest thing to get used to in Korean is placing the particle after the noun, to correspond to what in English appears before the noun.
After certain nouns that end in -이, -에, or -애, the particle 에 is often not heard. This can happen, for example, in the expressions
- 어디(에) 있어요?
Where is it? - 거기(에)…
(In) that place. . .
But this is not true in every case: for example, 사이에 between and 위에 on top of.