Korean learners get introduced to the world of 조사s (particles) pretty much immediately as soon as they start learning grammar. Aside from 은/는/이/가/을/를 (which I plan to cover in the future), 에 and 에서 are one of the earlier particles that people learn. However, it often is very confusing to people how these particles take on so many meanings.
How can 에 in a sentence like “학교에 가요” mean “to”, but then 에 in a sentence like “학교에 있어요” mean “at”? And how can 에서 in a sentence like “학교에서 가요” mean “from”, but then 에서 in a sentence like “학교에서 공부해요” mean “at” too? What’s the difference?!
Actually, it’s not that bad; I will explain a lot and it may seem like too much information, but the idea is to get the foundations and see the bigger picture. My hope is that this post will make these 조사s less stressful!
Let me just preface by saying that particles in Korean rarely just have one meaning. When we look at the dictionary in a minute, we will see that these particles actually have a bunch! So, what I hope that you do not do is try to make a one-to-one translation for the meanings of 에 and 에서, but rather understand their different usages as a whole. Because these particles have so many usages, that’s why they can often be translated into so many different things.
Let’s take a look at the dictionary definitions of 에 (courtesy of krdict — I highly recommend this dictionary, along with Naver):
These are the top 3 definitions of 에 in the dictionary, though there are actually 16 total definitions (not that you need to know all of them right now). Let’s look at the first one:
A postpositional particle used to indicate that the preceding statement refers to a certain place or space.
This is the usage of 에 that means “at”/”on” some location. However, the important point here is that, if you are trying to use 에 as meaning “at some location”, you can do so only if your verb is a static verb, aka: “existing”. If you look at some of the example sentences, some of these static verbs include: 있다 (& 없다), 많다, and 계시다. Let me say it again: when you want to say “at” some location AND your verb is a static verb (e.g. 있다), you will always use 에.
Example:
저는 학교에 있어요. → I am at school. [lit: “I exist at school.”] (Correct)
저는 학교에서 있어요. → (Incorrect)강아지가 의자 밑에 있어요. → The dog is under the chair. (Correct)
강아지가 의자 밑에서 있어요. → (Incorrect)
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Now let’s take a look at the second definition:
A postpositional particle used to indicate that the preceding statement refers to the time.
This one should be simple. Whatever time element you have in your sentence, you can stick 에 on it to mean “at/in [time]”.
Example:
아침 8시에 일어났어요. → I got up at 8 o’clock in the morning.
저는 저녁에 학교에 갔어요. → I went to school in the evening. (Notice the double usage of 에 in this example; first one is time usage, second one is the one I will talk about right after this usage.)
저는 여름에 수박을 많이 먹었어요. → I ate a lot of watermelon in the summer.
One exception is that you don’t use 에 with 오늘, 어제, 내일, and a few others.
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Let’s take a look at the third definition:
A postpositional particle used to indicate that the preceding statement refers to a destination or the course of a certain action.
This definition of 에 is where you get the translation of “to some location/destination”. The key point here is that when you want to say “to some location/destination”, your verb must be a motion verb. The most common motion verb you should keep in mind is 가다, though there are others.
Example:
저는 가게에 갈 거예요. → I will go to the store.
엄마가 장을 보러 시장에 갔어요. → Mom went to the market to buy groceries.
Now, let’s take a look at the dictionary definitions of 에서:
These are the main two definitions in the dictionary. Like 에, there are a lot more, but it will suffice to focus on these two for now. We will also later use these 2 definitions to compare with the 3 definitions of 에. Let’s look at the first one:
A postpositional particle used to indicate that the preceding word refers to a place where a certain action is being done.
Notice the word “action” in the definition. This definition refers to “at”/“in” some location — where the verb must be an action verb (not a static verb). Simply put, 에서 is where a dynamic action is being done.
Example:
저는 학교에서 수학을 공부하고 있어요. → I am studying math at school.
그 가수가 무대에서 아름다운 노래를 불렀어요. → That singer sang a beautiful song on the stage.
저는 침대에서 과자를 먹는 걸 좋아해요. → I like to eat snacks on my bed.
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Let’s take a look at the second definition:
A postpositional particle used to indicate that the preceding word refers to the starting point of something.
This definition is mainly refering to “from some location”. The counterpart to this is 에, where one of its meanings was “to some location”. As such, using 에서 with a motion verb gives the meaning of “from some location”.
Example:
저는 미국에서 왔어요. → I am from America. [lit: “I came from America.”]
서울에서 부산까지 기차를 탔어요. → I took a train from Seoul to Busan.
공원에서 강까지 산책을 했어요. → I took a stroll from the park to the river.
OK, now with all of these definitions in mind, it’s time to compile everything and analyze.
As a quick visual summary, we have:
에:
> 1. “at” some location, where verb is static
([location]에 있다)
> 2. “at” some time
([time]에 ...)
> 3. “to” some location, where verb is a motion verb
([location]에 [motion verb])에서:
> 1. “at” some location, where verb is dynamic/active
([location]에서 [action verb])
> 2. “from” some location, where verb is a motion verb
([location]에서 [motion verb])
I think the most confusing one for people is the “at some location” usage. But now it should be clear: when you want to say “at some location” and the verb is 있다 (or some variant), you should use 에. When you want to say “at some location” and the verb is an action verb, you should use 에서.
If I were to write pseudocode on how to decide whether to use 에 or 에서 in your sentence, this is what I’d write:
let pred = <locate the predicate/verb of the sentence/clause>if marking a time element {
use 에 to mark time;
}else if pred is a motion-verb (such as 가다/오다) {
use 에 and 에서 to mark "to" and "from" the location, respectively;
}else if pred is an action-verb (but NOT a motion-verb){
use 에서 to mark the location at which you are doing something actively;
}else if pred is static (있다 / 없다) {
use 에 to mark the location at which something/someone exists statically;
}
In my introductory paragraph, I wrote:
How can 에 in a sentence like “학교에 가요” mean “to”, but then 에 in a sentence like “학교에 있어요” mean “at”? And how can 에서 in a sentence like “학교에서 가요” mean “from”, but then 에서 in a sentence like “학교에서 공부해요” mean “at” too? What’s the difference?!
Do you think you can figure out now why each of those sentences use the particles that they do?
