Korean Location Particles ~에 and ~에서

In this lesson, you will learn how to use the Korean location particles 에 and 에서. In a previous lesson about Korean particles, you learned that particles are attached to some nouns to indicate the particular function of that word in a sentence.

The Korean location particles 에 and 에서 are both similar to the word ‘at’ in English. However, 에 and 에서 have slightly different meanings and are used in different situations. So, what is the difference between 에 and 에서?

The location marking particle 에 is used to indicate the location where something ‘exists’ or ‘is’. The location marking particle 에서 is used to indicate the location where an action is taking place.

Korean Location Particles ~에

에 is used in a sentence to mark a location where something exists, a direction in which an action goes towards, or a time at which an action takes place. Let’s look at some example sentences:

집에 고양이가 있어요. = The cat is at home.

As you can see, the location marking parting 에 in this sentence comes after 집 (house) and indicates the location where the cat (고양이) exists.

공원에 가요. – I go to the park / I am going to the park.

As you can see, the location marking particle 에 comes after 공원 (park) to indicate that the park is the place that you are going to (direction).

7시에 친구를 만났어요. – I met my friend at seven.

As you can see, the location marking particle 에 comes after the time 일곱시 (7 o’clock) to indicate that 7 o’clock is the time at which the speaker met his/her friend.

Korean Location Marking Particles ~에서

The location marking particle 에서 is mainly used to mark a word as the location where an action is taking place, or to express ‘from a place’. Let’s look at some example sentences:

학교에서 공부했어요. – I studied at school.

As you can see, 에서 is attached to 학교 (school) to indicate that the school is the place where the action (study) took place.

영국에서 왔어요. – I came from England.

As you can see, in this sentence 에서 is attached to 영국 (England) to mark England as the place where the speaker came from.

Review: 에 or 에서

Exercise 1

Here’s a fun practice exercise to review the difference between 에 and 에서. This video is a review quiz with 10 questions. Each question asks you to choose the correct location marking particle to complete the sentence.

Exercise 2

Here are some example dialogues which includes the Korean location particles 에 and 에서, plus what we covered in previous lessons. The dialogues also include the following keywords which you may not have studied yet:

• 어디 [eo-di] = where
• 언제 [eon-je] = when
• 집 [jib] = house
• 학교 [hak-kyo] = school
• 미국 [mi-guk] = America (U.S.A)
• 자다 [ja-da] = to sleep
• 운동하다 [un-dong-ha-da] = to exercise

Read the Korean sentences and try to guess what it means. Then, click on the ‘English’ tab to check the answer.