Hangul 109: Talking About Yesterday — The Past Tense

Part of the Learn Korean series on Gentle Path Living Before We Start In Hangul 107, you learned how to talk about what’s happening now — the present tense. But…

Part of the Learn Korean series on Gentle Path Living

Before We Start

In Hangul 107, you learned how to talk about what’s happening now — the present tense. But conversations aren’t just about the present. “What did you eat?” “I went home.” “She called me yesterday.” These are some of the most common sentences in everyday Korean, and they all rely on one thing: the past tense.

The good news? If you’ve already learned the present tense conjugation pattern, the past tense will feel familiar. It follows the same logic, just with one extra piece added in.

The Core Pattern

Korean verbs and adjectives change their ending depending on tense. To form the past tense, you take the verb stem and add -았/었 before the polite ending -어요/아요.

Stem vowel	Past tense marker	Example
ㅏ, ㅗ	-았	가다 (go) → 갔어요
Everything else	-었	먹다 (eat) → 먹었어요
하다 verbs	했	하다 (do) → 했어요

Rule of thumb: if the last vowel in the stem is ㅏ or ㅗ, use -았. Otherwise, use -었. 하다 verbs (like 공부하다, 사랑하다) always become 했어요.

Common Verbs in Past Tense

Verb (dictionary form)	Meaning	Past tense (polite)
가다	to go	갔어요
오다	to come	왔어요
먹다	to eat	먹었어요
마시다	to drink	마셨어요
보다	to see/watch	봤어요
하다	to do	했어요
자다	to sleep	잤어요
만나다	to meet	만났어요
공부하다	to study	공부했어요
있다	to exist/have	있었어요

Notice 보다 → 봤어요 — this is a small irregular contraction (보 + 았어요 would normally happen, but ㅗ + 아 contracts to 와). You’ll see this pattern with a few other verbs too, so don’t worry if it feels slightly different from the table above — with enough exposure, it becomes automatic.

Putting It Into Sentences

Korean	English
어제 학교에 갔어요.	I went to school yesterday.
아침에 커피를 마셨어요.	I drank coffee in the morning.
지난주에 친구를 만났어요.	I met a friend last week.
어젯밤에 영화를 봤어요.	I watched a movie last night.
주말에 집에 있었어요.	I was at home over the weekend.

Notice how time words like 어제 (yesterday), 지난주 (last week), and 어젯밤 (last night) often appear at the start of the sentence to set the scene — just like in English.

A Short Dialogue

민지: 어제 뭐 했어요? (What did you do yesterday?)

태호: 친구를 만났어요. 같이 저녁을 먹었어요. (I met a friend. We ate dinner together.)

민지: 재미있었어요? (Was it fun?)

태호: 네, 정말 재미있었어요! (Yes, it was really fun!)

Notice 재미있다 (to be fun/interesting) becomes 재미있었어요 in the past — the same -었 pattern applies to descriptive words (adjectives), not just action verbs.

For Heritage Learners

If you grew up hearing sentences like “밥 먹었어?” (Did you eat?) at home, you’ve been hearing the past tense your whole life — you just may not have connected it to a grammar rule until now. This is a great pattern to notice in your own memory: what other -었어요/았어요 sentences do you remember hearing from family? Try writing a few down before reading further. You’ll probably find you already know several past tense verbs by ear, even if you’ve never written them out.

For Beginners

Don’t worry about memorizing every irregular contraction (like 보다 → 봤어요) right away. Focus first on the core rule — stem + 았/었 + 어요 — and let the small irregulars sink in naturally as you see them repeated in context.

Practice

Try conjugating these verbs into the past tense (polite form):

읽다 (to read) → ?
쓰다 (to write) → ?
좋다 (to be good) → ?
살다 (to live) → ?
운동하다 (to exercise) → ?

Try writing one sentence about what you did yesterday, using at least one verb from the table above.

What’s Next

Now that you can talk about the present and the past, [Hangul 110] will cover the future tense — how to say what you’re going to do. Together, these three tenses give you the foundation to talk about almost anything that’s happened, is happening, or will happen.