Korean Job Discussion Forums

[tomato]

가야 means "must go," right? Right!
먹야 mwans "must eat," right? Right!
So -야 is a word ending placed after the verb which expresses obligation, right?
And a word ending placed after a verb is called an 어미, right?

Then why can't I find this word ending in the dictionary?
When I look up -야 as an 어미, all I can find is the word ending which follows 이 and 아니.

[JustJohn]

I don't know, but I've heard people say 누구야? On the phone, which I think would mean "who is this?" so that wouldn't fit with your theory very well. I could be completely mistaken though.

[Underwaterbob]

From my experience (이)야 is generally a friendly (rude to non-friends) version of the verb 이다. Or is just "hey".

It is also present in "have to": (conjugated verb)야되 but I have never heard it without the 되

My Korean skills are pretty screwed up though because they come mostly from just talking to people and gleaning what I can as opposed to actual study.

[poet13]

I think it's the US Army equivalent of Hooah. It can mean anything you want depending on the context and the way you say it.
This coming from a guy who doesn't speak Korean mind you...

[crazy_arcade]

From your posts Tomato, I had always assumed you were really great in Korean....

야 is simply a 반말 ending.

어디에요?
어디야?

Same meaning, different level of politeness.

The same can be done with 지 ending in 반말

김치 먹어요?
김치 먹지?

[nicholas_chiasson]

-I assumed tomato, resident poster and lord of the korean language, would have several bi-lingual Korean speakers in his list of friends and co-workers, who could serve as a much better source of Korean grammar than the resident insomniac argumentative, alcoholic posters on daveseslcafe, such as myself.
-Or perhaps he is just trying to remind us how much he has been studying. Don't you see, the very fact you ask 'us' for help with Korean shows how much interest Koreans have in helping 'you' with korean.

[Cerriowen]

"ya" is also used to show that you're calling a person, or giving a name to something. A bit like "hey".

If you just say "Joe" you mean the person. If you say "Joe-ya" You're calling for his attention.

Pa-bo ya (hey stupid)

My dog's name was "Bekho", when koreans called him they said "Beckho-ya!"

Just saying "YA!" is a rude way of generally calling someone's attention.

[JustJohn]

Okay, the informal ending/hey use seem to make sense. Naver also says it can mean "oh dear."


Slight sidetrack: How about when my co teachers say 자 the same way as 야? Is that basically the same, or does it mean something different?

[mistermasan]

s'pore has its "la"
chinese has it's "le" (which has about 23 applications).

my guess this korean manifestion can be categorized as a catch all exclamation.

[Atavistic]

[Css]

[mrgiles]

tomato,


먹어야하다 means "must eat"

it implies necessity in this context, but it must always be between two verbs, the last one generally being 하다 (to do). kinda like a conjugation.

[PeteJB]

[out of context]

If you're looking for the ending in 가야 and 먹어야, you should search under -어야 (the infinitive ending -어 plus the auxiliary particle 야). The 먹어야 doesn't mean "have to eat" by itself; it's a subordinating conjunction, and it needs a main clause to make any sense (you can translate it as something like "only by eating...").

많이 먹어야 한다. I have to eat a lot.
많이 먹어야 살을 찔 수 있다. I can only gain weight by eating a lot.

The same auxiliary particle (보조사) 야 can also be attached to nouns, indicating an exceptional instance:
나야 그 책을 읽었다. ("Sure, I have read the book (but I'm special, and you can't expect anyone else besides me to have read it).")

[mrgiles]

what out of context said. >_<