Lessons for everyone, everywhere
How have you been?
"How have you been" in Korean, as you already guessed is 잘지내셨어요?
Let's break this down a little bit.
Hopefully you would have already learned the word 잘 which means "Well".
지내셨어요 is the past tense conjugation of the verb 지내다 which means "To live/to get along"
When you ask a Korean 잘 지내셨어요? you are asking them if they have Lived well/ Got along well in life recently.
To this, there is a more casual way of asking someone how they have been and that would be
잘 지냈어요?
The only difference here is in the way you conjugate the verb 지내다.
Later on, once you get to learn the grammar, you will realize that verb conjugation in Korean
is like in no other language.
How about asking "Are you doing well?", more focused on the present.
That would be 잘 지내요?
Nice to meet you
만나서 반갑습니다! Nice to meet you. Let's try to understand how this is expression is composed.
만나서 comes from the verb 만나다 which means "To meet". The present tense conjugation of the verb is 만나(요) . However, if you add the 서 at the end of that, the whole meaning changes into "Because (I) meet (you)". The reason why we try to explain things at early stage in this course is you get an idea of how the sentences are build and how Korean really works. No worries if you can not remember so many things at once- involuntarily, if you see them again, it will come easier for you to learn them.
Right, moving on, 반갑습니다 is the formal present tense conjugation of the verb 반갑다 which means "To be glad/welcome/pleasant".
The whole 만나서 반갑습니다 expression would translate to "I am glad because I met you".
In a more casual manner, you could say 만나서 반가워요.
I love you
One formal way to say "I love you" in Korean is 사랑합니다.
사랑하다 is the dictionary form of the verb "To love" and 사랑합니다 is the formal present tense conjugation of it.
If you have not noticed, Koreans will not really say the "I" and "you" in "I love you" , the verb itself being enough for people to understand what is being said.
A more casual way to say the same thing will be 사랑해(요). No difference again except for the way you conjugate the verb.
Thank you
Thank you can be said in many different forms in Korean and we will try to cover them all.
The most used form and the one you can count on regardless of where you are and who you are speaking to is 감사합니다. The verb "To thank" in Korean is 감사하다. Again, Koreans will not say the "you" in "Thank you" and you will notice this a lot- if the pronouns can be deduced without much effort, Koreans will avoid using them.
Another way to say Thank you would be 감사해요. This is as polite as the first form, however a little bit friendlier.
While around friends and family, Koreans would also use the best 고맙다 which means "To be thankful"
Here is how you would say it formally: 고맙습니다.
A casual way to say this would be 고마워요 and very casual way to say it would be 고맙다 (which is the same as the dictionary form), however this would translate into "Thanks"