-(으)세요
(eu)seyo
Grammar · 3 senses
please do
Examples
여기 앉으세요.
Please sit here.
이 길로 쭉 가세요.
Please go straight on this road.
조심하세요.
Please be careful.
When you'd hear it
This is a polite spoken command used with strangers, customers, students, and people of similar or higher status. It is common in everyday conversation, service encounters, and dramas; more formal announcements often use -(으)십시오 instead.
What learners get wrong
Unlike -아/어 주세요, which clearly asks someone to do a favor for the speaker, -(으)세요 can give a direction or instruction, as in 여기 앉으세요. It is polite but does not always mean “please” in the English sense.
do you, are you
Examples
지금 어디에 계세요?
Where are you now?
무슨 일을 하세요?
What do you do?
시간이 있으세요?
Do you have time?
When you'd hear it
This is common in polite spoken Korean with strangers, customers, coworkers, and older people. Learners hear it constantly in dramas, shops, workplaces, and everyday questions addressed respectfully to another person.
What learners get wrong
The same ending can also make a polite request, as in 하세요 meaning “please do it,” so context and intonation distinguish it from a question. Compared with -(으)어요, -(으)세요 also marks respect toward the person being addressed.
you do, you are
Examples
선생님은 한국어를 가르치세요.
The teacher teaches Korean.
부모님은 서울에 계세요.
My parents are in Seoul.
생일이세요.
It's your birthday.
When you'd hear it
This is common in polite speech, including conversations with elders, customers, teachers, and workplace colleagues. In statements, it often appears in dramas and everyday conversation when the subject is someone being treated honorifically, including a third person.
What learners get wrong
Learners often read every instance as a command because the same form is used in requests. In a statement such as 선생님은 한국어를 가르치세요, the subject is the honored person; context and sentence type distinguish it from a request directed at the listener.
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