You finished this day
Casual speech on the page
Webtoon characters mostly talk the way friends do, in 반말 (banmal), the casual speech level, and the bubbles write it down as it sounds. Today covers the short reactions on almost every screen, the particles a bubble drops, and what the trailing ... is doing. Each casual form comes with its polite 해요 version, so you can read the first and keep saying the second.
One line, three levels
The same line at three levels. Bubbles between friends use the top one:
뭐 is the spoken short form of 무엇 'what'. Alone, with a frown, 뭐야? is closer to 'What?' than a real question.
Without the question mark, 괜찮아 is also the answer: 'I'm fine.' The formal one adds the honorific -시-, as a member of staff might.
The formal row switches verb. 고맙습니다 is just as correct; 감사합니다 is the one heard most.
The rows differ only at the end, because that is where Korean puts its speech level. For most verbs 반말 is the 해요 form with 요 taken off: 괜찮아요 becomes 괜찮아, 고마워요 becomes 고마워. The main exception is 'to be', where 이에요 or 예요 becomes 이야 or 야, which is why 뭐예요 turns into 뭐야 and not 뭐예. If you can read 해요, you can read most bubbles by noticing a missing 요.
Four reactions
Each fills a bubble on its own. The polite version is in the note:
Each of these is a complete reaction, so an artist can drop it into a bubble with no build-up. 어떡해 shows spelling following speech: 어떻게 하 wore down to 어떡하, and the ㅎ left in 해 makes the ㄱ breathy, [어떠캐], hence eotteokae. 왜 그래 and 괜찮아 change meaning with the face that says them, so the drawing does half the grammar. Read the face first, then the bubble.
What a bubble leaves out
The left is correct but stiff. The right is what a bubble actually says:
Particles mark roles that context usually makes clear, so speech drops them unless it needs contrast or emphasis, and bubbles copy speech. The ... works because of where Korean keeps its meaning: the verb, the tense and the speech level all come last. A line that stops early, like 그게 아니라... (geuge anira...) 'it's not that...', holds back the part that says what the speaker means, and the reader fills it in from the face. A bubble of nothing but dots is a character with a whole sentence and no way to finish it.
Carry over, from earlier days
Check yourself
8 questions. Get 5 right to finish the day.