Korean ㄹ Irregular (ㄹ Drop) Explained: 살다 → 삽니다

What you will be able to do after this lesson

• Conjugate 살다, 알다, 만들다, 팔다, 놀다, 길다 and 멀다 into the polite present, the formal present, the modifier and the -(으)니까 form.
• State the three triggers, ㄴ, ㅂ and ㅅ, and say why 살면 has no 으.
• Choose -는 for verbs (사는 집) and -ㄴ for adjectives (먼 곳) in modifiers.
• Spot stems such as 넓다 and 읽다 that look like ㄹ stems but never drop anything.

Before you start: this page assumes you have read how to recognize irregular verbs first. Time: about 30 minutes. Level: A1.

What Is the Korean ㄹ Irregular?

The Korean ㄹ irregular is the class of verbs and adjectives whose stem ends in ㄹ and loses that ㄹ before certain endings. The stem is the dictionary form minus 다: 살다 (to live) has the stem 살. Add the formal ending -ㅂ니다 and the ㄹ disappears: 사 + ㅂ니다 = 삽니다.

Every stem that ends in a single ㄹ behaves this way, without exception. That makes the class easy once you know the trigger letters. The common members include everyday words such as 알다 (to know), 만들다 (to make), 팔다 (to sell), 놀다 (to play, hang out) and 열다 (to open), and adjectives such as 길다 (to be long) and 멀다 (to be far).

The class has two halves, and learners need both:

1. ㄹ drop. The ㄹ disappears before an ending that starts with ㄴ, ㅂ or ㅅ.
2. 으 skip. The linking vowel 으 is never added after the stem, so 살 + (으)면 is 살면.

Revised Romanization, the official Latin-letter system, writes 살다 as salda and 삽니다 as samnida. Romanization is only a reading aid here; the Hangul spelling is the form to learn. The first half, the drop itself, comes next.

When Does ㄹ Drop?

ㄹ drops when the ending begins with ㄴ, ㅂ or ㅅ. A handy memory line is "ㄴ, ㅂ, ㅅ: the ㄹ goes". Each trigger matches a set of very common endings, so the drop appears in formal speech, in honorific speech and in modifiers every day.

The formal ending deserves a note. Korean has two formal endings: -ㅂ니다 after a vowel and -습니다 after a consonant. An ㄹ stem takes -ㅂ니다, as if it ended in a vowel, and then the ㄹ falls away. That is why the form is 삽니다 [삼니다], never 살습니다. The full rule for both endings is in formal conjugation.

Older grammars add a fourth trigger, 오, which appears only in old-fashioned -오 endings such as 어디 사오? ("Where do you live?"). You will meet it in historical dramas, not in daily speech.

Worked Example: 살다 through Five Endings

Take 살다 (to live) and follow it through five endings, one step at a time.

1. Find the stem: remove 다 from 살다. The stem is 살.
2. Polite present -아요: the ending starts with 아, which is not a trigger. 살 + 아요 = 살아요 [사라요].
3. Formal -ㅂ니다: the ending starts with ㅂ, a trigger. Drop ㄹ: 사 + ㅂ니다 = 삽니다.
4. Honorific -세요: the ending starts with ㅅ, a trigger. Drop ㄹ: 사 + 세요 = 사세요.
5. Condition -(으)면: skip 으, because the stem ends in ㄹ. 살 + 면 = 살면. The ending starts with ㅁ, so the ㄹ stays.
6. Reason -(으)니까: skip 으, then the ending starts with ㄴ. Drop ㄹ: 사 + 니까 = 사니까.

Two example sentences use these forms:

• 어디에 사세요? = Where do you live? (polite, respectful)
• 저는 서울에 삽니다. = I live in Seoul. (formal)

An expert tip: 사세요 is also the honorific of 사다 (to buy). 어디에 사세요? means "Where do you live?", while 이거 사세요 means "Please buy this." The sentence, not the verb form, tells you which verb it is. The drop explains half the class; the endings that leave ㄹ alone are the other half.

When Does ㄹ Stay?

ㄹ stays before every ending that does not start with ㄴ, ㅂ or ㅅ. In practice, that means the 아/어 endings and the endings that start with ㄱ, ㅈ, ㄷ or ㄹ. All of the polite present, the past tense and most connectors keep the full stem.

Compare the past tense across the two groups. Every ㄹ word keeps its ㄹ in the past, because the past marker starts with 았 or 었: 살았어요, 만들었어요, 알았어요. The polite present 알아요 [아라요] and the formal 압니다 therefore look like two different words, though both mean "I know".

• 주말에 친구하고 놀아요. = I hang out with friends on the weekend.
• 집이 회사에서 멀어요. = My home is far from the office.

The endings that start with (으) look like they belong in this "stays" table, yet they behave differently, which the next section explains.

Why Do ㄹ Stems Skip 으?

ㄹ stems skip 으 because Korean treats ㄹ as a sound that can join an ending directly, the way a vowel does. Many endings come in two shapes. After a vowel, the bare ending is used: 가면. After a consonant, the linking vowel 으 (매개모음, maegaemoeum) is added: 먹으면. An ㄹ stem takes the vowel shape.

*먹다 uses the special honorific verb 드시다, so 드세요 is the form people say; 먹으세요 also exists.

After the 으 is skipped, the ordinary drop rule still applies. -(으)니까 becomes -니까, which starts with ㄴ, so the ㄹ goes: 사니까. -(으)면 becomes -면, which starts with ㅁ, so the ㄹ stays: 살면. With -(으)ㄹ 거예요, the ending's own ㄹ merges with the stem's ㄹ, so only one is written: 살 거예요 [살꺼예요].

• 주말에 친구 집에 놀러 가요. = I'm going to a friend's place to hang out this weekend.
• 제가 김밥을 만들게요. = I'll make the gimbap.

Learners often assume 살으면 is the safe, "regular" choice because 살 ends in a consonant letter. In fact 살으면 is wrong in standard Korean, because ㄹ stems always take the vowel shape of the ending. With both halves of the rule in hand, the 20 most useful members of the class are next.

20 Common ㄹ Verbs and Adjectives

The 20 words below cover most of the ㄹ stems a beginner meets. The table gives the polite present (ㄹ stays), the formal present and the honorific -세요 (ㄹ drops) and the present modifier (ㄹ drops). Verbs take -는 in the modifier, and adjectives take -ㄴ.

The adjective -세요 forms (기세요, 머세요, 다세요) are grammatical but rare, because they show respect to the subject of a description. They are listed so the pattern is complete. In real speech you will hear 길어요, 멀어요 and 달아요 far more often.

Several drop forms collide with other words. 납니다 (flies) is spelled like 납니다 from 나다 (to come out), 겁니다 (hangs) like the 겁니다 of 갈 겁니다 ("will go"), and 드세요 (please lift) like 드세요 (please eat, from 드시다). Context decides. The modifier column is where verbs and adjectives part ways, so it gets its own section.

ㄹ Words as Modifiers: 사는, 먼, 긴

ㄹ words lose their ㄹ in every modifier that starts with ㄴ, and verbs and adjectives use different modifier endings. A modifier is the form of a verb or adjective that describes a noun, like "long" in "long hair". The table shows both groups with a noun.

Verbs also have a past modifier with -(으)ㄴ and a future one with -(으)ㄹ. Both skip 으, and the past one drops ㄹ: 만든 케이크 (a cake someone made), 살 집 (a house to live in). Example sentences:

• 제가 사는 곳은 부산이에요. = The place where I live is Busan.
• 이 케이크는 제가 만든 거예요. = I made this cake.
• 머리가 긴 사람이 제 동생이에요. = The person with long hair is my younger sibling.

A counterintuitive point: some modifiers become one-syllable words that already exist. 산 is the past modifier of 살다 and also the noun "mountain". 안 is the past modifier of 알다 and also the negation word. 가는 is the modifier of 가늘다 (thin) and also of 가다 (go). Learners who know the rule can read these correctly from context. The full system of modifiers is taught in noun-modifying forms. Not every stem with an ㄹ in it belongs to this class, which leads to the look-alikes.

Which Stems Only Look Like ㄹ Stems?

Stems that have ㄹ inside a double final consonant, such as 넓다, 짧다 and 읽다, are not ㄹ stems and never drop the ㄹ. A double final consonant (겹받침, gyeopbatchim) is a pair of consonant letters at the bottom of one block, like ㄼ in 넓 or ㄺ in 읽. The stem ends in that pair, not in ㄹ alone, so it conjugates like any regular consonant stem: it takes 으 and -습니다.

Set 길다 beside 짧다, a natural opposite pair. 길다 gives 긴 머리, while 짧다 gives 짧은 머리. The test is visual: if the final block ends in ㄹ alone (길), apply the ㄹ rule; if it ends in two letters (짧), treat it as regular. More pairs of this kind are collected in regular verbs that look irregular. The table of mistakes below shows where learners mix the two groups.

Common Mistakes with ㄹ Stems

Most ㄹ errors come from treating the stem as a regular consonant stem: adding 으, using -습니다 or keeping the ㄹ before a trigger.

The 사아요 error is the reverse mistake: over-applying the drop. If you remember only one check, use this one: drop ㄹ only when the next letter is ㄴ, ㅂ or ㅅ.

How School Grammar Labels ㄹ Drop

Korean school grammar (학교문법) treats ㄹ drop as a regular rule (규칙 활용), not as an irregular. The reason is that every stem ending in ㄹ follows it automatically, so nothing needs to be memorised word by word. Most English-language textbooks still list it among the irregulars, and this site's ㄹ irregular section follows that learner convention because the forms differ from the regular pattern a learner first studies.

The label does not change any form. 삽니다 is correct under both views. If a Korean teacher tells you "ㄹ 탈락 is regular", both of you are describing the same rule with different labels.

Practice

Write the form asked for. Answers follow the quiz.

1. 살다, formal present
2. 알다, honorific polite (-세요)
3. 만들다, present modifier + 사람
4. 팔다, polite present
5. 멀다, adjective modifier + 곳
6. 길다, -(으)니까 form
7. 놀다 + -(으)러 가요
8. 열다, formal present
9. 넓다, modifier + 방 (room)
10. Fix the error: 만들으면

Answers to the Practice

1. 삽니다. ㄹ drops before ㅂ.
2. 아세요. ㄹ drops before ㅅ.
3. 만드는 사람. ㄹ drops before ㄴ.
4. 팔아요. ㄹ stays before 아.
5. 먼 곳. Adjective modifier -ㄴ, no 으, ㄹ drops.
6. 기니까. No 으, then ㄹ drops before ㄴ.
7. 놀러 가요. No 으, and ㄹ stays before ㄹ.
8. 엽니다. ㄹ drops before ㅂ.
9. 넓은 방. 넓다 is regular, so it adds 으 and keeps ㄹ.
10. 만들면. ㄹ stems skip 으, and ㅁ is not a trigger.

If you missed items 6, 7 or 10, reread the section on skipping 으: those items test the second half of the class.

What to Learn Next

The Korean ㄹ irregular (ㄹ drop) comes down to one check: drop ㄹ before ㄴ, ㅂ and ㅅ, keep it everywhere else, and never add 으. Next, compare all seven classes side by side in the irregular verbs chart, which lists the trigger, an example verb and its polite present, past, formal and -(으)면 forms. For more ㄹ words, see the word list in the ㄹ irregular section linked above.

This lesson covers ㄹ stems in the main beginner endings. It does not list every rare ending, and it does not cover 르 stems such as 모르다, which follow a separate rule. The bracketed pronunciations are standard Seoul approximations.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is 살다 삽니다 and not 살습니다? The formal ending is -ㅂ니다 after a vowel or ㄹ and -습니다 after other consonants. 살다 counts as an ㄹ stem, so it takes -ㅂ니다, and the ㄹ drops before ㅂ. 사 + ㅂ니다 gives 삽니다 [삼니다]. 살습니다 is a common learner error, never the standard form.

What is the formal form of 알다? The formal present of 알다 (to know) is 압니다 [암니다], and the formal question is 압니까? The ㄹ drops before ㅂ, exactly as in 삽니다. The honorific forms also drop it, because the honorific marker starts with ㅅ, so 아세요? and 아십니까? mean "Do you know?"

What is the polite form of 만들다? The polite present of 만들다 (to make) is 만들어요, and the ㄹ stays because the ending starts with 어. The formal form is 만듭니다, the honorific is 만드세요, and the past is 만들었어요. Only the forms whose ending starts with ㄴ, ㅂ or ㅅ lose the ㄹ.

How do I say "the place where I live" in Korean? Say 제가 사는 곳, literally "the place I live". 사는 is the present modifier of 살다: the ending -는 starts with ㄴ, so the ㄹ drops. A full sentence is 제가 사는 곳은 부산이에요, "The place where I live is Busan." For a house, say 제가 사는 집.

Why is 길다 긴 and not 길은? 길다 (to be long) is an adjective, and adjectives take -(으)ㄴ in the present modifier. An ㄹ stem skips 으 and then loses its ㄹ before ㄴ, so 길 + ㄴ gives 긴, as in 긴 머리 "long hair". 길은 is wrong for the same reason that 살으면 is wrong.

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