-아/어하다
a/eo hada
Grammar · 1 sense
showing that they feel it - an emotion made visible
Examples
아이가 주사를 무서워해요.
The child is afraid of injections.
친구가 시험에 붙어서 정말 기뻐했어요.
My friend was really pleased to pass the exam.
When you'd hear it
This pattern is common in everyday speech and writing when describing another person’s reactions, especially in family conversations, classrooms, and dramas. Forms such as 좋아하다 and 싫어하다 are frequent in both casual and polite conversation.
What learners get wrong
Turns an adjective of feeling into a verb about someone else: 좋다 → 좋아하다, 기쁘다 → 기뻐하다, 무섭다 → 무서워하다. Korean does not let you state another person's inner feeling flatly, so 동생이 기뻐요 is wrong and 동생이 기뻐해요 is right - the -아/어하다 form reports the feeling as something you can see. Your own feelings keep the plain adjective. Note it also turns the object marker on: 저는 강아지가 좋아요 but 동생은 강아지를 좋아해요.
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