9.1. Verbs: Past Tense

9.1.1. Past Tense, Polite Style

As you know, Korean verb forms are made up of bases with endings on them. The present-tense forms you have learned are all in the POLITE STYLE (해요) and have the particle 요 at the end to mark that style. As you learned in Lesson 7, when you remove this 요, the part that remains is what we call the INFINITIVE (해). The Korean infinitive is what the PAST TENSE is based on. The PAST BASE is made by adding -ㅆ- to the plain infinitive, for example:

To the past base formed in this way you add the infinitive vowel 어 to give the PAST INFINITIVE. Then you need to add a verb ending. If you are speaking in the polite style (which we have been learning up to now) you add the polite particle 요 in the normal way: 앉았어요 sat, 잤어요 went to bed, slept, 주었어요 gave, 왔어요 came, 썼어요 wrote, 빨랐어요 was fast, 놀았어요 played, etc. Here are some more examples:

9.1.2. Past and Past-Past

The past tense is usually translated by the English did (was) or had done (had been), but for verbs of going and coming a result is implied: 갔어요 means he went (and is still gone); he’s gone/left and 왔어요 means he came (and is still here); he’s here. To say he went (but is back now) and he came (but left again so he isn’t here any more), there is a special PAST-PAST form, like the one you saw in Dialogue Two of this lesson:

미스 리:  네, 어제 사모님하고 극장에 갔었어요.

Yes, yesterday I went to the cinema with your wife [and now I’m back].

You will learn more about Past-Past forms in a later lesson.
Notice that there are two ways to look at such English expressions as he’s here/there:

a.  simple location (여기/거기에 있어요 )
b.  the result of movement from another place (왔어요/갔어요)

When you can paraphrase he’s here by he’s arrived, here he comes /  here he is the second version is appropriate.

9.1.3. Past Tense, Honorific Polite Style

To make honorific forms past tense, you add the past-tense marker -ㅆ- to the HONORIFIC INFINITIVE and complete the form by adding a polite-style ending:

Honorific Forms

Here are some of the verbs you have learned so far, in the polite past and the honorific polite past:

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