Korean negative sentences

01 / Understand

Put an before the action or description

The short negative 안 tells the listener that the action or description does not apply. A useful first pair is 가요 and 안 가요: go and do not go, or am going and am not going, depending on the context. Write 안 as a separate word before the predicate. Do not attach it after the complete polite form, and do not replace the ending 요 with it. The negative word changes the meaning while the ending continues to express the speech style.

Keep any object or place information in a sensible relationship with the verb. In 커피를 안 마셔요, coffee is the object and 안 comes before the drinking predicate. The sentence can express a general habit when the conversation is about what you usually drink. In 오늘 안 가요, today gives a more immediate time frame. The same negative pattern can participate in different time settings; it is not limited to permanent preferences or to one kind of action.

Descriptions can also take 안. A room can be 안 커요, not large, without being assigned a different noun identity. This distinction matters because English uses be in both is not large and is not a classroom. Korean treats the description and the noun identity differently. First identify what the positive sentence would be. That gives you a much better starting point than translating the English word not in isolation.

02 / Understand

Build the longer negative from the stem

A second common pattern attaches 지 to the dictionary stem and follows it with 않아요. From 가다, remove 다 and form 가지 않아요. From 먹다, form 먹지 않아요. There is no need to first produce 가요 or 먹어요. Attaching 지 after a finished polite present form creates the wrong structure. The first part identifies the predicate being negated, and the final 않아요 supplies the negative predicate with its polite ending.

For the simple statements in this lesson, 안 가요 and 가지 않아요 can communicate the same basic absence of going. The longer pattern is not inherently a statement of inability, and it does not mean never by itself. Context can give a longer or shorter form a particular emphasis, and individual expressions differ in how natural each form sounds. Learn both as productive options without inventing a universal rule that one is polite and the other rude. Both examples here have a polite ending.

The spelling 않아요 contains ㅎ, but the pronunciation is commonly represented as 아나요. The reading anayo helps you say the form, while the Hangul spelling preserves its structure. Do not confuse 않아요 with 알아요, which belongs to the verb know. Read and retrieve the whole negative ending. With a description such as 크다, the longer form 크지 않아요 also avoids the need to build the vowel ending found in 커요.

03 / Understand

Place the negative carefully with hada words

Many activity verbs contain a noun plus 하다. 공부하다 is to study, and 운동하다 is to exercise. For a clear short negative, separate the activity noun and put 안 before 해요: 공부 안 해요 or 운동 안 해요. The noun may also take the object particle, as in 공부를 안 해요. This makes the relationship transparent: the speaker is not doing the named activity. Preserve the spaces around the separate negative word.

The longer negative can keep the dictionary stem together. 공부하지 않아요 is a straightforward alternative. This is often a helpful choice when you are uncertain about where to place 안 inside a more complicated sentence. You still need the correct dictionary form, but you do not have to turn every word into a separate activity noun. The same principle produces 운동하지 않아요.

Do not assume that every word ending in 하다 separates in the same way. 좋아하다, to like, is learned here with 안 좋아해요 or 좋아하지 않아요. A descriptive predicate such as 행복하다, to be happy, should not be reconstructed as a noun plus an independent act of doing happiness. 행복하지 않아요 is a useful longer form. Look at the type and established use of the whole word. Recognizing the final spelling 하다 is useful, but it is not enough to determine every negative construction.

04 / Understand

Use mot when an action is not possible

못 expresses inability or a circumstance that prevents an action. Compare 안 가요 with 못 가요. The first says that going does not happen in the relevant situation. The second presents going as something the person cannot do. If a conflicting appointment prevents you from attending, 못 가요 communicates that obstacle more directly. If you merely say 안 가요, the listener does not receive the same explicit inability meaning.

The distinction is not a perfect division between deliberate choice and every other event. Ordinary negation can describe facts without explaining their cause, and inability can arise from different kinds of limitation. A person may lack a skill, have no opportunity, or face a temporary practical obstacle. State the intended meaning clearly instead of trying to infer a person's motivation from one negative word. The questions below specify whether inability is the information you need to express.

For the simple pattern, place 못 before an action verb: 못 읽어요 means cannot read it. With a separable activity noun and 하다, the negative belongs before the doing element. Ordinary descriptive predicates do not take this beginner inability pattern just because English can say cannot be in some complex construction. To say a room is not large, use 안 커요 or 크지 않아요. Do not turn the description into an action that someone is unable to perform.

05 / Understand

Use anieyo for a negative noun identity

When the positive sentence identifies someone or something with a noun, use 아니에요 for the negative. 학생이에요 means is a student. 학생이 아니에요 denies that identity. The noun before 아니에요 takes 이 after a consonant or 가 after a vowel in the explicit pattern practiced here. This is not the same structure as putting 안 before a conjugated action verb.

Compare 학생이 아니에요 with 의사가 아니에요. The final sound of the noun determines 이 or 가. It does not depend on the speaker's gender, the person's status, or whether the noun refers to a living thing. You can omit an already understood topic while keeping the negative identity clear. In response to an incorrect guess about your profession, 의사가 아니에요 can be enough, with the context supplying that you are talking about yourself.

Keep 아니요 and 아니에요 distinct. 아니요 is a response word meaning no. 아니에요 is the predicate in the negative identity construction. They can appear in the same answer, such as 아니요, 학생이 아니에요. The first rejects the suggestion, and the rest states the actual denial. Do not use a bare response word as though it were the complete grammatical replacement for every negative verb ending. Adding an affirmative correction afterward can make the intended identity especially clear.

06 / Understand

Use eopseoyo for absence and not having

있어요 expresses existence, presence, or having something in several common constructions. Its ordinary negative counterpart is 없어요. 시간이 없어요 can mean that you do not have time. 책이 없어요 can mean there is no book or that you do not have a book, depending on the situation. Do not assume that every English do not have sentence needs an action verb meaning possess. Korean often describes the absence of the relevant thing.

Location can be included with 에. 도서관에 없어요 says that the contextually understood person or thing is not at the library. This differs from 도서관이 아니에요, which denies that something is a library. One sentence concerns where something is; the other concerns what something is. The English phrase is not appears in both translations, but the Korean predicates are different because the relationships are different.

Notice the subject particle in 시간이 없어요 and 물이 없어요. The missing thing takes 이 or 가 in these explicit beginner sentences. It is not an object being acted on by 없어요. A topic may identify the person whose situation you are discussing, as in 저는 시간이 없어요. Conversation can omit information that is already understood, but learning the complete pattern helps you see the structure. Use absence, identity, and action negatives as separate choices rather than treating them as interchangeable ways of inserting not.

07 / Understand

Keep tense and response meaning clear

Negation does not remove the need to express time. For an ordinary past event, 안 가요 becomes 안 갔어요. The longer 가지 않아요 becomes 가지 않았어요. In the longer construction, the past marking occurs on the final negative predicate. These forms report that the event did not happen in the relevant earlier situation. Use 어제 when you need to establish yesterday explicitly.

The other negative predicates have their own past forms. 없어요 becomes 없었어요, and 아니에요 becomes 아니었어요. A statement about not having time yesterday therefore uses 시간이 없었어요. Do not attach a new noun copula after the already conjugated negative predicate. The final word already carries the grammatical information needed for the construction.

When answering a negative question, repeat the affirmative or negative predicate until your intended meaning is unmistakable. If someone asks 안 가요?, you can clarify with 안 가요 or 가요 according to whether you are going. A short response word alone can be harder for a learner to interpret across languages. Finally, distinguish a statement that an action does not happen from an instruction telling someone not to do it. Korean negative requests use a different construction, such as 가지 마세요. The statement 안 가요 is not a universal substitute for that instruction.

Notice the difference

Common mistakes

From understanding to using

Make your own example.

Try these without answer choices. Say your answer aloud or write it below, then compare your reasoning with the model.