In short

To say “X is Y” in Korean you glue an ending onto the noun: 이에요 (ieyo) after a noun that ends in a 받침, 예요 (yeyo) after a noun that ends in a vowel. The negative is a separate word - N + 이/가 아니에요 (anieyo) - and you turn any of these into a question just by raising your voice at the end.

The rule

The Korean equivalent of English “to be (something)” is the copula 이다 (ida). It is not a free word like English “is” - it is a bound ending. It has no life of its own: it is written attached to the preceding noun with no space, exactly like a particle, and the whole thing is pronounced as one chunk.

In this lesson you learn the polite everyday (해요체) forms. Build a sentence in three steps.

• Step 1 - take the noun you want to identify: 학생 (haksaeng, student), 커피 (keopi, coffee).
• Step 2 - look at its LAST syllable. Does it end in a 받침 (a final consonant) or in a vowel? 학생 ends in the 받침 ㅇ; 커피 ends in the vowel ㅣ.
• Step 3 - attach the matching form, with no space. After a 받침 -> 이에요; after a vowel -> 예요. So 학생이에요 and 커피예요.

Schematically: Noun(받침) + 이에요 / Noun(vowel) + 예요.

A ㄹ 받침 is an ordinary 받침 here - there is no special case: 서울 -> 서울이에요 (seourieyo, it’s Seoul).

Pronunciation note: 예요 is very often heard simply as [에요] (eyo) in normal speech, so 커피예요 sounds close to “keopi-eyo”. That is a pronunciation fact only - the spelling stays 예요, and *커피에요 is a misspelling.

The negative: 아니다

이다 is never negated with 안 or -지 않다 (lesson 14). It has its own separate negative word, 아니다 (anida), polite form 아니에요 (anieyo). Two things change:

• 아니에요 is a real word, so it is written with a space after the noun.
• The noun before it takes the subject particle 이 (after a 받침) or 가 (after a vowel).

Schematically: Noun + 이/가 + 아니에요. So 학생 -> 학생이 아니에요 (is not a student), 커피 -> 커피가 아니에요 (is not coffee). In relaxed speech that particle is often dropped, which is why you will hear 제 거 아니에요 (it’s not mine) rather than the fuller 제 것이 아니에요.

Questions

There is no word order change and no extra word: the statement and the question are identical, and only the intonation (and the question mark in writing) differs. 학생이에요. = (You) are a student. -> 학생이에요? = Are you a student?

Two warnings

Do not confuse the copula with 있어요 (isseoyo, from 있다). 이에요/예요 says what something is (identity); 있어요 says that something exists or that you have it - that is lesson 6.

And remember from lesson 1 that Korean drops what is obvious: 학생이에요 on its own is a complete sentence whose subject is whoever the context points to.

Treat 이에요, 예요 and 아니에요 as fixed forms to memorise here. They are 해요체 forms, and the productive rule that generates 해요체 from any stem arrives in lesson 12; the formal 입니다 / 아닙니다 (imnida / animnida) belong to lesson 27. For now, just these three.

Forms & patterns

The copula, chosen by the ending of the noun:

The negative, chosen the same way:

The four sentence types, all from one noun:

Where these forms sit (for orientation only - do not use the right-hand column yet):

Examples

Common mistakes

• 저는 학생 이에요. (Jeoneun haksaeng ieyo.) -> 저는 학생이에요. (Jeoneun haksaengieyo.) - 이에요 is an ending, not an English-style “is”: it attaches to the noun with no space.
• 이건 커피이에요. (Igeon keopiieyo.) -> 이건 커피예요. (Igeon keopiyeyo.) - after a vowel-final noun the form is 예요; 이에요 is only for nouns with a 받침.
• 저는 학생예요. (Jeoneun haksaengyeyo.) -> 저는 학생이에요. (Jeoneun haksaengieyo.) - the mirror error: 학생 ends in the 받침 ㅇ, so it takes 이에요.
• 저는 학생이 있어요. (Jeoneun haksaengi isseoyo.) -> 저는 학생이에요. (Jeoneun haksaengieyo.) - 있어요 means “there is / I have”; for saying what someone is, use 이에요/예요.
• 저는 한국 사람 안 이에요. (Jeoneun Hanguk saram an ieyo.) -> 저는 한국 사람이 아니에요. (Jeoneun Hanguk sarami anieyo.) - 이다 is never negated with 안; it has its own negative 아니다, and the noun in front takes 이/가.

Tips

• One-line memory hook: 받침 -> 이에요, no 받침 -> 예요. The 이 is there to give the ending something to lean on after a consonant, and it disappears after a vowel.
• The two most useful sentences a beginner can own are 이름이 뭐예요? (Ireumi mwoyeyo?, What is your name?) and its answer 저는 …이에요/예요. Note the spelling 뭐예요 - 뭐 ends in a vowel, so 예요, and the common *뭐에요 is simply wrong.
• English keeps “is” as a separate word; Korean does not. If you can hear a pause before 이에요/예요, you are saying it wrong - but 아니에요 really is a separate word, so a small pause there is correct.
• Positive and negative use different glue: the positive attaches (학생이에요), the negative takes a particle plus a space (학생이 아니에요). Drill the pair together so the space never migrates.