When I try to write in Korean, I notice that I do not know what to use when there are two different particles. So I raise this question and my language partner decides to spend two weeks helping me solving this problem.
We first start with the subject case particle 이/가 [i/ka]. One unique characteristic of Korean is that nouns are typically marked by particles. There is no corresponding equivalent in English. Korean has two types of particles: case particles and special particles. Case particles indicate
the syntactic role of the noun to which they are attached (e.g., whether the noun is a subject, an object, an indirect object, and so on). Case particles include 이/가 “subject case particle,” 을/를 “object case particle,” and so on. The other type is “special particles” whose function is not to indicate syntactic roles of the noun but rather to add special meanings, such as indicating the noun as a topic of the sentence, emphasizing the singularity of the noun, and so on. Special particles include 은/는 “topic particle” and delimiters such as 만 “only,” 도 “also,” and so on.
I also learned more about the characteristics of particles. My language partner told me that there were few things to remember when using these particles. First, although particles are tightly bound to and are an integral part of the noun, they can be often omitted in colloquial usages. This omission in colloquial conversation is possible because the contextual understanding of the conversation is often sufficient to indicate the syntactic roles of the nouns being used. However, the omission of the particles is not allowed in formal written communication. Second, because of the case particle’s role of indicating the syntactic role of the nouns, the word order can be scrambled. For instance, notice that the following two sentences have the same meaning, even if the word order of both sentences is different.
The subject case particle 이/가 is a two-form particle. 이 is used when the particle comes after a noun that ends in a consonant, and 가 is used when the particle comes after a noun that ends
in a vowel. The principle of having two forms resembles the use in English of “a/an.” However, the rule is the opposite in that “an” is used before a noun that begins with a vowel (e.g., an umbrella), and “a” is used before a noun that begins with a consonant(e.g., a cup).
Then, we also spend class on the special particle. The special particle 은/는 is a topic particle since it marks the noun as the sentence topic (e.g., what the sentence is about). The particle 은/는 is not a case particle; hence it does not indicate the grammatical function of the noun it attaches to. In a similar way that the subject particle has two forms 이 and 가, the topic particle also has two forms: 은 (after consonants) and 는 (after vowels).
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Particles will be the absolute death of me! I know exactly what you mean by your confusion and it took me a lot of work and practice to get the concept down and distinguish them from each other. I really enjoyed the fact that you talked about what your language instructor, who now I assume to be Jenna, taught you because everything that you wrote can be extremely helpful to someone that wants to or is starting to learn Korean. There's not much clear information out there on the internet about particles, but this was really easy to follow and I thoroughly enjoyed having a nice review on the topic!