Korean Verb Stem: Base Form, Stem Types and Endings

The first section defines the stem and shows where it sits in five verbs.

What Is a Korean Verb Stem?

A Korean verb stem (어간, eogan) is the part of a verb or adjective that stays after you remove 다 from the dictionary form. The stem holds the meaning. Endings that follow it add tense, politeness and mood. The dictionary form (기본형, gibonhyeong) is the form you find in a dictionary, always written as stem + 다.

Notice that the stem is not always one syllable and is not always the first syllable. The verb 기다리다 (to wait) has the stem 기다리, with three syllables. The last sound of the stem matters most, because it decides which ending shape you use. The next section puts the four lessons in a teaching order.

Reading Order for the Stem Lessons

The four stem lessons build on each other, so read them in this order. Each one answers one question, and each leaves you able to do one thing you could not do before.

1. The Korean verb base form. Answers why every dictionary verb ends in 다. It shows how to remove 다, lists the copulas 이다 and 아니다 as the odd cases, and ends with a strip-the-다 drill. You leave able to find the stem of any dictionary word.
2. What a verb stem is. Separates vowel stems (가), consonant stems (먹) and ㄹ stems (살). It lists twelve endings that need 으 after a consonant, and explains why 하 behaves differently. You leave able to pick -(으)면 or -면 correctly.
3. Korean verb endings. Sorts endings into four families and shows the order of the pre-final slots (-시-, -았/었-, -겠-). You leave able to label any verb as stem plus endings.
4. The verb stem list. A table of 60 common verbs and adjectives with stem, stem type and polite present, with audio on every row and links to flashcards. You leave with a reference you can drill.

The lessons use the same verbs again and again (먹다, 가다, 살다, 하다), so the stem boundary you learn in lesson one stays visible until lesson four. The next section tells you whether you can skip any of them.

Can You Skip Ahead?

You can skip the first two lessons if you answer all three questions below correctly without help. Try them before you read the answers.

1. What is the stem of 먹다?
2. What is the stem of 가다, and does it end in a vowel or a consonant?
3. What is the stem of 살다, and which sound does it end in?

Answers. (1) 먹. (2) 가, which ends in the vowel ㅏ. (3) 살, which ends in the consonant ㄹ. Question 3 is the tricky one, because ㄹ stems behave differently from other consonant stems before some endings: 살면 ("if you live") has no 으, but 먹으면 ("if you eat") does.

If you missed question 3, read what a verb stem is. If you missed question 1 or 2, start with the base-form lesson. If you answered all three, go straight to the endings lesson.

The words in these answers come with Korean labels, which the next section collects.

Key Terms for the Stem Lessons

Six terms appear across the four lessons. Korean grammar books use the Korean names, so learning them once saves confusion later.

Romanization follows the Revised Romanization of Korean and appears only as a learning aid. The terms 용언 and 활용 follow the usage of the National Institute of Korean Language (국립국어원). The next section helps you choose a lesson by question.

Which Stem Lesson Should You Read First?

Read the lesson that matches the question you have today. The table sorts common learner questions to the lesson that answers them.

The times are reading estimates for a typical adult learner, not measured results. Learners who study with audio and say each form aloud usually need more time and remember more.

An honest limit of these four lessons: they teach the regular patterns and mark the irregular stems, but they do not teach the irregular rules. Verbs such as 듣다 (stem 듣, but 들어요) are listed and linked, not explained. The irregular rules have their own section. The next section shows where the stem lessons lead.

What Comes after the Stem Lessons?

After the stem lessons, learn the polite present with the present tense recipe. It takes the stem you now know how to find, picks 아요 or 어요, and builds forms such as 먹어요 and 가요. The wider system, including past, future and formal speech, is covered in Korean verb conjugation.

Two other topics connect to stems. The consonant at the end of a consonant stem is a batchim, and it sounds different before a vowel than at the end of a word. For example, the stem 읽 is pronounced [익] in 읽다 [익따] but [일] in 읽어요 [일거요]. Learn the sound rules in batchim pronunciation. And the verb itself, in sentences, is covered in how Korean verbs work.

Every Korean verb stem is the base of dozens of forms, so five minutes spent on the Korean verb stem now removes hours of confusion later.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to learn stems before conjugation? Yes. Every Korean conjugation rule starts with the stem, because endings attach to the stem and nothing else. A learner who can remove 다 and tell a vowel stem from a consonant stem can follow the polite present, past and formal rules without memorising each verb separately. The four stem lessons take under two hours in total.

What is the stem of a Korean adjective? An adjective stem is found the same way as a verb stem: remove 다 from the dictionary form. The adjective 크다 (to be big) has the stem 크, and 좋다 (to be good) has the stem 좋. Adjectives then take the same endings as verbs, such as 커요 and 좋아요 in the polite present.

Is the stem the same as the root? Often, but not always. The root (어근) is the core meaning part of a word, and the stem (어간) is the part that stays when endings change. For 먹다 both are 먹. For 공부하다 the stem is 공부하 while the root is 공부, because 하 belongs to the word and takes the endings.

What is the difference between a stem and an ending? The stem carries the meaning and the ending carries grammar. In 먹었어요 the stem 먹 means eat, while 었 marks the past and 어요 makes the sentence polite. One stem can take dozens of endings, which is why Korean learners study endings as a system rather than word by word.

What this hub does not cover. It does not cover the irregular conjugation classes, the honorific forms, or the meanings of individual endings; each has its own section. About this page. Last updated 2026-10-09. The Korean text, spoken forms and audio on this page were machine-generated and reviewed and signed off by Min-ji Park on 15 October 2026. Romanization follows the Revised Romanization of Korean and is shown only as a learning aid.