English lets you stay vague about where your information came from. "It's cold in Busan" could be something you felt yesterday or something a friend texted you — the sentence doesn't say, and usually nobody asks. Korean is not so relaxed. Two of the most common relaying endings in everyday speech force you to declare your source: -더라고(요) for what you personally witnessed, and -대(요)/-래(요) for what you heard from someone else. Choosing between them is not a stylistic nicety — it is choosing your evidence, and getting it wrong tells your listener you're claiming firsthand knowledge you don't have.
-더라고(요): "I saw it myself"
-더라고(요) relays something you directly experienced — saw, felt, tasted, discovered — usually as a mild "turns out…" or "I found that…". It carries the retrospective-evidential -더-, which anchors the statement in a moment of past personal witnessing. The full semantics of -더- live on -더라 / -더라고요; here we focus on its everyday relaying use.
거기 진짜 춥더라고요.
geogi jinjja chupdeoragoyo.
It was really cold there — I felt it myself.
그 영화 생각보다 재미있더라고요.
geu yeonghwa saenggakboda jaemiitdeoragoyo.
That movie was more fun than I expected — I found.
The key is that you were there. You cannot use -더라고요 for a fact you only heard about; the ending is a promise of firsthand contact.
민수가 어제 학교에 안 왔더라고요.
minsuga eoje hakgyoe an watdeoragoyo.
Minsu didn't come to school yesterday — I noticed (I was there).
-대(요) and -래(요): "I heard it from someone"
These are the hearsay endings. They are contractions of full indirect quotation — you drop the 하다 and fuse what's left — and they mean "they say / apparently / I heard that." Which one you use depends on what kind of sentence you're relaying.
| Full quotation | Contracts to | Relays a… |
|---|---|---|
| -다고 해요 | -대요 | statement (verb / adjective) |
| -(이)라고 해요 | -(이)래요 | statement with 이다 / a command |
| -냐고 해요 | -냬요 | question |
| -자고 해요 | -재요 | proposal / suggestion |
The workhorse is -대요, from -다고 해요, for relaying ordinary statements.
내일 비 온대요.
naeil bi ondaeyo.
They say it'll rain tomorrow.
민수는 오늘 안 온대요.
minsuneun oneul an ondaeyo.
They say Minsu isn't coming today.
-래요 comes from -(이)라고 해요, and it covers two things: statements built on the copula 이다, and relayed commands. This split trips people up, so keep both cases in mind.
그 사람 새로 온 선생님이래요.
geu saram saero on seonsaengnimiraeyo.
Apparently he's the newly-arrived teacher.
선생님이 조용히 하래요.
seonsaengnimi joyonghi haraeyo.
The teacher says to be quiet.
엄마가 빨리 오래요.
eommaga ppalli oraeyo.
Mom says to come quickly.
Their two siblings round out the set. -냬요 (from -냐고 해요) relays a question someone asked, and -재요 (from -자고 해요) relays a suggestion.
민수가 언제 오냬요.
minsuga eonje onyaeyo.
Minsu is asking when you're coming.
친구가 같이 밥 먹재요.
chinguga gachi bap meokjaeyo.
My friend suggests we eat together.
The defining contrast: witnessed vs heard
Put the two endings side by side and the evidential split becomes vivid. Same fact, two sources, two endings:
어제 가 보니까 진짜 붐비더라고요.
eoje ga bonikka jinjja bumbideoragoyo.
I went yesterday, and it was really crowded — I saw it.
거기 요즘 진짜 붐빈대요.
geogi yojeum jinjja bumbindaeyo.
They say it's really crowded there these days — I heard.
English tags the source with an optional aside: "I saw it was crowded" versus "apparently it's crowded / they say it's crowded." Korean has no optional aside — the source is welded into the verb ending, so you must commit. This is the deep lesson: where English treats evidence as extra information you can leave out, Korean treats it as grammatically obligatory. The full indirect-quotation machinery behind -대요/-래요 — including all the pronoun and tense shifts — is on quotation shifts and contractions and the quotative -고/-라고.
Register: the 요 carries the politeness
Just like other 해요체 endings, these are polite only with 요. Drop it and you get bare 반말: 춥더라고 / 온대 / 오래 / 먹재 — perfectly natural with close friends, but too intimate for a superior or a stranger. This is the same trap as every other sentence-final ending: the ending itself feels casual and conversational, so learners forget that upward, the 요 is non-negotiable.
부장님, 회의가 세 시로 바뀌었대요.
bujangnim, hoeuiga se siro bakkwieotdaeyo.
Director, they say the meeting's been moved to three o'clock.
Common Mistakes
1. Using -더라고요 for hearsay you didn't witness — the flagship error. A weather forecast you saw on TV is not something you experienced; it's something you were told. Relay it with -대요.
❌ 내일 비 오더라고요.
Incorrect for a forecast — you didn't personally witness tomorrow's rain; you heard/read it.
✅ 내일 비 온대요.
naeil bi ondaeyo.
They say it'll rain tomorrow.
2. Mixing up -대요 and -래요. Statements built on 이다 (and relayed commands) take -래요, not -대요. "He's a student" is 학생이래요, never 학생이대요.
❌ 그 사람 학생이대요.
Incorrect — a copula statement (이다) relays with -래요.
✅ 그 사람 학생이래요.
geu saram haksaeng-iraeyo.
Apparently he's a student.
3. Dropping 요 upward. Bare -더라고 / -대 / -래 to someone senior is 반말.
❌ 과장님, 오늘 회식 있대.
Incorrect — 요-less hearsay to a superior sounds too casual.
✅ 과장님, 오늘 회식 있대요.
gwajangnim, oneul hoesik itdaeyo.
Manager, they say there's a work dinner today.
4. Reaching for a full 온다고 해요 when a native would contract. In speech, the contracted -대요/-래요 is the default; the long form 온다고 해요 sounds heavier and is reserved for careful or emphatic relaying. Contracting is not sloppy — it's the norm.
Key Takeaways
- -더라고(요) = firsthand: you witnessed, felt, or discovered it. Never use it for hearsay.
- -대요 relays statements; -래요 relays copula statements and commands; -냬요 relays questions; -재요 relays proposals. They are contractions of -다고/-라고/-냐고/-자고 해요.
- Choosing the ending is choosing your evidence — Korean makes the source obligatory where English makes it optional.
- Watch the -대요 vs -래요 split: 이다 and commands go to -래요.
- Upward, keep the 요 — bare forms are intimate 반말.
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- -다니(요): Disbelief and IncredulityTOPIK 4 — The ending of shock — -다니(요) echoes just-heard or just-realized information back with disbelief, dismay, or 'I can't believe it'.
- -더라 / -더라고(요): 'I Saw / Found That…'TOPIK 3 — The two everyday sentence-final forms of -더-: plain 반말 -더라 and polite -더라고요. Both relay a personally-witnessed past discovery with a 'turns out / I noticed' flavor — and both are sharply different from present-moment -네요.
- 고 / (이)라고: The Quotative Marker (Overview)TOPIK 3 — A map of the quotative marker that clips onto reported speech before verbs like 하다/말하다/생각하다 — direct quotation with (이)라고, indirect quotation with -고 fused onto a reshaped plain ending, split by four sentence types.
- Deixis Shifts & Spoken Contractions (-대요/-냬요/-래요/-재요)TOPIK 4 — The two things that happen when speech is reported — deictic words recompute from the reporter's viewpoint, and '…고 해요' contracts to the ubiquitous -대요/-냬요/-래요/-재요 endings that double as 'I heard that ~'.
- Sentence-Final Discourse Endings: Managing Shared KnowledgeTOPIK 3 — The whole map before the details — how Korean loads its sentence endings with interactional meaning (new info, shared info, agreement, fresh realization, hearsay) that English carries through intonation and tag words.