요

The politeness tag

The single most useful syllable in Korean: put it on the end of almost anything and the sentence becomes polite. It works on full verbs and on bare fragments alike — 'red wine or white wine?', 'left turn in 400 metres', 'no, I'm free'. Take it off and the same words become casual speech, fine only with close friends or juniors. It is tied to no tense and no meaning; it is pure politeness.

Register: polite