You finished this day
Have and have not
One verb today, and it does two jobs: 있어요 (isseoyo) means both 'there is' and 'I have', and 없어요 (eopseoyo) means both 'there is not' and 'I do not have'. With them you can ask whether a shop has something, whether someone is free, and whether something is fun or tasty.
There is, I have
Put a noun in front and you have a question or an answer:
Korean has no separate verb for possession. To say you have water it says that water exists, with you understood as the place where it exists, so 물 있어요 covers both 'there is water' and 'I have water'. The thing that exists is the subject, which is why, when a marker appears, it is day 4's 이/가: 물이 있어요. And as with 모르다 on day 5, the negative is a verb of its own, 없어요, not 있어요 with a not in front.
Having time
The same verb is how Koreans ask whether you are free:
None of these sentences says who has the time, and none needs to. Korean leaves out anything the situation already makes clear, so I, you and it disappear from most everyday speech. 시간 있어요? to a friend can only mean 'do you have time', and 시간 있어요 in reply can only mean 'I do'. Markers drop out in the same way in conversation, which is why you hear 시간 있어요 far more often than 시간이 있어요.
Fun and tasty
Add 있어요 or 없어요 to a noun and you get a description:
Korean builds many descriptions this way: a noun that names a quality, plus 있다 or 없다 to say whether the quality is present. 재미있어요 is 'fun exists' and 맛없어요 is 'taste does not exist', where English needs separate adjectives such as fun and boring, tasty and tasteless. Because each pair shares its noun, learning one word gives you its opposite for free. The two parts have fused into a single word, written without a space, and they now behave as one descriptive verb.
Carry over, from earlier days
📋 Today’s words 12
Check yourself
8 questions. Get 5 right to finish the day.