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Sun vip

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2025.04.20 05:26

This post discusses 은/는 and 이/가 from a cultural and linguistic

perspective.

A 2016 analysis of articles from ten major Korean newspapers found that 은/는 appeared around 6.5 million times, and 이/가 around 5.8 million times. This highlights just how fundamental they are in Korean sentence structure.

To better understand their use, it helps to know that Korean is both a topic-prominent and subject-prominent language ,and more importantly, a situation-centered, high-context language. In contrast, English is generally a person-centered, low-context language.

Let’s look at some comparisons between Korean and English:

머리가 아프다 → I have a headache

작년에 눈이 많이 왔다 → We got a lot of snow last year

그 책은 재미있었다 → I found the book interesting

In Korean, the focus often lies in describing the situation itself, rather than emphasizing who is performing the action. This is where the roles of 은/는 and 이/가 become clearer:

• 은/는 introduces a topic—a shared frame of reference between speaker and listener—and shifts focus to the comment or situation (given information).

• 이/가 on the other hand, introduces new information, emphasizes the subject, or clarifies the focus of the sentence.

However, this distinction becomes more nuanced in so-called double-subject constructions, such as:

나는 머리가 아프다.
At first glance, it looks like there are two subjects: I and my head. But a better way to understand it is as:

[나는] [머리가] [아프다]

Here, 나는 introduces the speaker as the topic—“I’m talking about myself”—while 머리가 is the actual subject experiencing the condition, and "머리" is being described by the descriptive verb 아프다.

This reflects a key feature of Korean pragmatics: the use of the topic-comment structure to establish common ground. For example, saying “저는” sets up a shared conversational frame between the speaker and the listener (i.e., a sense of togetherness or collectivism).
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Comments

  • Kerim 케림 2025.04.20 06:02

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    Wow, such an in depth breakdown! 감사합니다
  • Sebastian Martin 2025.04.20 10:09

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    This is really good. I found a guy on youtube explain it. I personally disagree that korean is a high context language. I think it’s opposite personally. But one thing a teacher taught was that Korean focus on verbs and so things like “my head hurts” becomes like “my head is in pain/hurts” this helped me an lot
  • Sun 2025.04.20 10:19

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    @Kerim 케림 Thank you for reading. 감사합니다
  • Sun 2025.04.20 10:20

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    @Sebastian Martin Thank you for your comment! Since Korean is a verb-based and agglutinative language, the way you described it definitely makes sense and feels very functional. And that's interesting—you feel that Korean is more low-context? What made you see it that way?
  • Sebastian Martin 2025.04.20 10:26

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    @Sun unless i misunderstand the meaning of context, i might be wrong. And also, i don’t truly understand Korean so my opinion isn’t right… but I guess what I was trying to say is like. In english, we hardly ever omit the subject. We also resay things like “him, she, he, I” whatever so i’m never having to wait for a switch cause I’m constantly reminded. But in Korean, if we are talking about a person and I hear 이/가 i know.. but i never get reminded of who or what we are talking about and have to assume we are talking about the same person until i hear a another “이/가“ That notifies me that we are now changing the subject? Since i’m still learning, half the time i’m guessing what the topic or subject is during long conversations. Specifically when it comes to abstract ideas like love and happiness
  • Sun 2025.04.20 10:41

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    @Sebastian Martin I think you're actually touching on a key point about high-context languages like Korean. In high-context cultures, a lot of meaning is shared through context rather than being explicitly repeated, like subjects being omitted, or ideas being carried across multiple sentences without restating them. So your experience of "having to guess" or "not being reminded" is actually very typical, especially for learners. That’s what makes Korean challenging but also really interesting. Even as a native Korean speaker, I sometimes get confused about the subject in conversations and have to ask for clarification, like who or what we’re referring to. So that's relatable
  • Sebastian Martin 2025.04.20 10:46

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    @Sun oh then i was wrong lol
  • Sebastian Martin 2025.04.20 10:47

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    @Sun yeah i have to train my hears to specifically listen to particles and then if I hear a adjective or 이/가 i have to sometimes check to see if it is part of a word also lol
  • Sun 2025.04.20 11:12

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    @Sebastian Martin Lol you're not wrong at all. What you said totally makes sense. Good luck with your Korean language journey!
  • 체리쉬Cherish 2025.05.08 16:40

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    Wow this is so helpful!!! I have to come back and reread your post!!! 감사합니다! ☺️
  • Sun 2025.05.09 14:12

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    @체리쉬Cherish Thank you for leaving such a great comment—I'm glad you found it helpful!
  • 체리쉬Cherish 2025.05.09 15:51

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    @Sun you’re welcome!!! ☺️ I truly appreciate your post! 😁

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