What exactly is "안녕하세요" ?

 

Hello there! 안녕하세요! 

Hello there! It’s my first posting, so let’s start with 안녕하세요 !

Shall we take a fresh look at this really basic expression ?

You must have just memorised it in the beginning, because it is one of the foremost words and we need to say it everywhere.

But it’s actually quite a complex expression to analyse!
Not as simple as “Hi/Hello”, “Salut/Bonjour”, “Hola/Buenos días”…
(I looked into “Здравствуйте” 🤔 this seems also grammatically as tricky as the Korean one)

So where does “안녕하세요” come from? 

☝️Here are key points :

• Look up first the verb 안녕하다 in the dictionary and see the definition
• Cut off 다, as you know how to do it :)
• Now, you’ve got “안녕하-”
• Add 시, the honorific word ending
• Then you’ve got “안녕하시-” for now
• And then, another word ending 어 (to make it predicative or interrogative) followed by 요 of informal politeness
• You get finally 안녕하시어요
• This gets contracted as 안녕하셔요 or 안녕하세요, the latter being much more common

😈Did you notice that “안녕하세요” is grammatically an interrogative sentence, asking if you are in a peaceful and calm state? 

This is not an imperative sentence. It’s should be written like “안녕하세요?”. 

But since it’s a common everyday expression, many people use it without a question mark. 

I personally try to use it with a question mark sometimes, but I usually give up because I don’t want it to sound too imposing 😆

📝 To note or not to note according to your mood of the moment :

The verb 안녕하다 is created based on the noun 안녕, using -하다 (suffix) which creates a verb having the meaning of this noun. 공부하다 is another verb from the same formation rule.

그래요, 우리는 한국어를 공부해요. 조금 어렵죠?

See you in the next posting.