래

Casual 'they say' or 'told me'

Reports something second-hand for sentences built on 'to be' — his English score is perfect, the soft tofu is made from soybeans grown in-house — and, separately, relays an order someone gave: she told me to go diagonally backwards, they say we'd stop at a rest area, who let him into my room? Which of the two you get depends on the verb it sits on. It also snaps out as exasperation, as in the line demanding what 'dense' is supposed to mean. 대 does the reporting job for ordinary verbs and descriptions; 래요 is the polite version.

Register: casual, plain speech