Describing People, Places & Things — I can describe a person, place, or thing using connected simple sentences and basic adjectives.

Description is one of the oldest and most fundamental functions of any language. When Korean speakers first began writing in their own script in the fifteenth century, the ability to describe the world around them — people's appearances, the beauty of natural landscapes, and the qualities of everyday objects — was central to literary and spoken expression alike. Understanding how Korean handles description gives you insight into a language structure that is very different from English and opens the door to richer, more natural communication.

In English, adjectives are separate words that sit in front of nouns: "the tall building" or "a kind person." Korean, however, treats many adjectives as a type of descriptive verb (형용사, hyeong-yong-sa). This means that words like "tall" or "kind" actually conjugate the same way action verbs do. This unique feature has shaped how Korean speakers build descriptions for centuries, and it's exactly what you'll learn to use in this lesson.

The central question this lesson addresses is: how do you take basic Korean adjectives, attach them to subjects, and then connect your ideas into multiple sentences so that your descriptions sound natural rather than choppy? By the end, you'll be able to describe a person, a place, or a thing using connected simple sentences and basic adjectives — a foundational skill for every Korean speaker.

Before diving into sentence building, you need to understand a few foundational ideas that make Korean description work. These principles are different from English, so take a moment to internalize them. Once these click, everything else in the lesson will flow naturally.

The diagram below shows the anatomy of a Korean descriptive sentence and how it differs from its English equivalent. Pay close attention to how the descriptive verb sits at the end of the Korean sentence, carrying both the adjective meaning and the politeness ending.

As you can see, the Korean sentence is structurally simpler in some ways — it uses fewer words. The subject particle 이/가 marks the noun as the subject, and the descriptive verb alone completes the thought. There's no separate word for "is" because the descriptive verb already implies existence or a state of being. This is the core visual pattern you'll repeat for every description you create in Korean.

Now that you see the big picture, let's examine exactly how to conjugate descriptive verbs and link them together. There are two main skills here: turning a dictionary-form adjective into a polite sentence ending, and connecting multiple descriptions with -고 (and).

Polite Present Tense Conjugation (-아/어요)

Modifier Form (Adjective + Noun)

Connecting Sentences with -고

To describe people, places, and things effectively, you need a starter vocabulary of high-frequency descriptive verbs organized by category. The table below groups the most useful adjectives into three columns based on what you're describing. Study these forms — you'll use them in every practice problem.

The visual above reinforces an important rule: when you connect clauses with -고, you only add the polite ending (-아/어요) to the very last verb in the sentence. All preceding verbs just take the bare stem + 고. This keeps your sentences clean and natural-sounding.

Let's walk through a complete example. You want to describe your friend to someone: "My friend is tall and kind. (She) has long hair. (She) is really fun." We'll build this step by step in Korean.

When describing in Korean, you have several options for structure. The table below compares three common approaches so you can pick the right one depending on how much detail you want to give and how natural you want to sound.

The skills you're learning here form the foundation for more advanced descriptive techniques in Korean. Once you're comfortable with -고 and basic adjectives, the next levels introduce connectors for contrast, reason, and time, as well as more complex modifier patterns. The table below gives you a preview of where this is heading.

Don't worry about memorizing the intermediate column right now. The important thing is to see that every single pattern on the right side is built directly on top of what you're learning today. Mastering -고, basic adjective conjugation, and the modifier form gives you the scaffolding for everything that comes next in Korean description.

Test your understanding with these five problems. They increase in difficulty, starting with a quick concept check and ending with a creative challenge. Try to answer each one before reading the solution.