Irregular Attributives: 매운, 긴, 하얀 | Korean Grammar

To put an adjective in front of a noun in Korean, you turn it into an attributive with -(으)ㄴ: 작다 "be small" → 작은 가방 "a small bag," 좋다 "be good" → 좋은 사람 "a good person." For most adjectives that is a mechanical swap. But a large, high-frequency group of adjectives change their stem before the ending — 맵다 "be spicy" becomes 매운, not ×맵은; 길다 "be long" becomes 긴, not ×길은; 하얗다 "be white" becomes 하얀, not ×하얗은. These are the irregular attributives, and they are where nearly every English speaker's noun phrase breaks.

The good news is that Korean adjectives are descriptive verbs — they conjugate exactly like action verbs — so these stem changes are not a separate adjective rulebook. They are the same irregular patterns verbs show, and the attributive -(으)ㄴ triggers them the same way the past-tense and other vowel-initial endings do. Learn the four patterns below once, and they transfer across the whole verb system.

Why the stem changes at all

The attributive ending is -은 after a consonant-final (받침) stem and -ㄴ after a vowel-final stem: 작 + 은 → 작은, 크 + ㄴ → 큰. The irregular stems are irregular precisely because their final consonant is unstable in front of a vowel-initial ending like -은. Rather than sit still and take -은, the consonant transforms or drops. Each irregular class does this in one predictable way.

💡

The single most common English-speaker error is gluing -은 onto the unchanged dictionary stem: ×맵은, ×춥은, ×길은, ×하얗은. In every one of those the stem must morph first. There is no such word as ×맵은 — a native reads it as a beginner's slip, the way "goed" reads in English.

ㅂ-irregular: ㅂ → 우 + ㄴ

In the ㅂ-irregular class, the final ㅂ turns into the vowel 우 before the ending, and then -ㄴ attaches. So 맵다 is not 맵 + 은 but 매우 + ㄴ = 매운. The reason is historical: that ㅂ was once a soft /β/ sound that vocalized to /w~u/, and it still surfaces as 우 whenever a vowel ending follows.

Dictionary form	Attributive	Meaning
맵다	매운	spicy
춥다	추운	cold (weather)
쉽다	쉬운	easy
어렵다	어려운	difficult
무겁다	무거운	heavy
가볍다	가벼운	light
아름답다	아름다운	beautiful

매운 음식을 잘 먹어요.

maeun eumsigeul jal meogeoyo

I handle spicy food well.

오늘은 정말 추운 날이에요.

oneureun jeongmal chuun nari-eyo

Today is a really cold day.

무거운 가방을 들고 다녀요.

mugeoun gabang-eul deulgo danyeoyo

I carry a heavy bag around.

Not every ㅂ-final adjective is irregular. A small set stays regular and simply takes -은: 좁다 → 좁은 "narrow," 넓다 → 넓은 "wide." You memorize the handful of regulars; everything else in this class goes ㅂ → 우. The full list lives on the ㅂ-irregular reference.

ㄹ-stems: the ㄹ drops before ㄴ

Adjectives whose stem ends in ㄹ — 길다 "be long," 멀다 "be far," 달다 "be sweet" — lose that ㄹ before the -ㄴ ending. The result is a bare stem + ㄴ: 길다 → 기 + ㄴ = 긴, 멀다 → 머 + ㄴ = 먼, 달다 → 다 + ㄴ = 단.

This one is worth a reframe: it is not really "irregular" in the lexical sense. Every ㄹ-stem — verb or adjective — drops its ㄹ before ㄴ, ㅂ, and ㅅ. It is a systematic sound rule, so once you accept it, it never has exceptions to memorize. What trips learners up is that the ㄹ genuinely deletes rather than surviving as ×길은.

긴 머리가 잘 어울려요.

gin meoriga jal eoullyeoyo

Long hair suits you well.

먼 곳에서 왔어요.

meon goseseo wasseoyo

I came from a faraway place.

단 음식은 몸에 안 좋아요.

dan eumsigeun mome an joayo

Sweet food isn't good for you.

💡

Because the ㄹ vanishes, 긴 (long) and 먼 (far) look nothing like their dictionary forms 길다 / 멀다. When you meet 긴 in the wild, trace it back: bare stem 기 + a mysterious ㄴ = a hidden ㄹ-stem. The ㄹ-deletion rule gets its own home on the ㄹ-stem page.

ㅎ-irregular: ㅎ drops + ㄴ (the color family)

The ㅎ-irregular adjectives are almost all colors (하얗다, 빨갛다, 파랗다, 노랗다, 까맣다) plus the demonstrative-manner set (그렇다, 이렇다, 어떻다). Their final ㅎ drops entirely and -ㄴ attaches to the bare vowel: 하얗다 → 하야 + ㄴ = 하얀, 빨갛다 → 빨가 + ㄴ = 빨간.

Dictionary form	Attributive	Meaning
하얗다	하얀	white
빨갛다	빨간	red
파랗다	파란	blue
노랗다	노란	yellow
어떻다	어떤	what kind of

하얀 눈이 내려요.

hayan nuni naeryeoyo

White snow is falling.

빨간 사과 두 개 주세요.

ppalgan sagwa du gae juseyo

Two red apples, please.

The crucial guard here: not every ㅎ-final adjective is irregular. The everyday words 좋다 "good," 많다 "many," 싫다 "disliked" are ㅎ-regular and take a plain -은: 좋은, 많은, 싫은 — never ×존, ×만. Only the color/manner family drops the ㅎ. The full split is on the ㅎ-irregular page. (그렇다 "be so" is common enough to earn its own treatment.)

ㅅ-irregular: ㅅ drops, then -은

A few stems ending in ㅅ drop that ㅅ before a vowel ending but keep the -은. The one you meet constantly is 낫다 "be better," whose attributive is 나은: 낫 → 나 (ㅅ gone) + 은.

이것보다 나은 방법이 있을까요?

igeotboda naeun bangbeobi isseulkkayo

Is there a better way than this?

Watch that 낫다 (be better) is ㅅ-irregular, but the look-alikes 낮다 "be low" and 낳다 "give birth" are regular — 낮은, 낳은. The class is small enough to hold in your head.

The one map to memorize

Stem ends in…	Rule	Example
ㅂ (irregular)	ㅂ → 우 + ㄴ	맵다 → 매운
ㄹ	drop ㄹ + ㄴ	길다 → 긴
ㅎ (color/manner)	drop ㅎ + ㄴ	하얗다 → 하얀
ㅅ (irregular)	drop ㅅ + 은	낫다 → 나은

These are the verb patterns in disguise

Because adjectives are descriptive verbs, the exact same stem changes surface when an action verb takes a vowel-initial ending. The ㅂ-irregular verb 돕다 "help" is a perfect mirror: its present attributive uses the verb ending -는 (돕는, with no stem change), but its past-attributive -(으)ㄴ triggers the same ㅂ → 우 you saw above.

저를 도운 사람을 잊지 못해요.

jeoreul doun sarameul itji mothaeyo

I can't forget the person who helped me.

Here 도운 = 돕다 + -(으)ㄴ, identical in machinery to 매운 = 맵다 + -(으)ㄴ. So the effort you spend on adjective attributives pays off twice: it also unlocks the past-modifier form of every irregular verb. The consolidated table for all seven irregular classes is the irregular reference.

Common Mistakes

1. Gluing -은 onto an unchanged ㅂ-stem. The ㅂ must become 우 first.

❌ 맵은 음식은 못 먹어요.

Wrong — 맵다 is ㅂ-irregular, so the attributive is 매운, not ×맵은.

✅ 매운 음식은 못 먹어요.

maeun eumsigeun mot meogeoyo

I can't eat spicy food.

2. Keeping the ㄹ instead of deleting it. A ㄹ-stem loses its ㄹ before ㄴ.

❌ 길은 머리를 자르고 싶어요.

Wrong — 길다 drops its ㄹ before ㄴ; the form is 긴, not ×길은.

✅ 긴 머리를 자르고 싶어요.

gin meorireul jareugo sipeoyo

I want to cut my long hair.

3. Leaving the ㅎ in a color adjective. The ㅎ drops entirely.

❌ 하얗은 셔츠를 샀어요.

Wrong — 하얗다 is ㅎ-irregular; the attributive is 하얀, not ×하얗은.

✅ 하얀 셔츠를 샀어요.

hayan syeocheureul sasseoyo

I bought a white shirt.

4. Over-applying the irregular to a regular ㅎ-stem. 좋다 is regular.

❌ 존 사람이에요.

Wrong — 좋다 is ㅎ-regular, so it's 좋은 사람, never ×존.

✅ 좋은 사람이에요.

joeun sarami-eyo

He's a good person.

5. Treating 낫다 like a regular stem. The ㅅ drops.

❌ 낫은 게 없어요.

Wrong — 낫다 is ㅅ-irregular; the attributive is 나은, not ×낫은.

✅ 나은 게 없어요.

naeun ge eopseoyo

There's nothing better.

Key Takeaways

The attributive -(으)ㄴ turns an adjective into a noun-modifier, but irregular stems morph before it, never taking a blunt -은.
ㅂ → 우 + ㄴ (매운), ㄹ drops + ㄴ (긴), ㅎ drops + ㄴ (하얀), ㅅ drops + 은 (나은).
Not all ㅂ- and ㅎ-final stems are irregular: 좁은, 넓은, 좋은, 많은 stay regular — don't over-apply.
These are the same irregular patterns action verbs show with -(으)ㄴ (돕다 → 도운), because Korean adjectives conjugate as descriptive verbs.

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