반말 in Every Mood: Question, Command, Proposal

Most learners meet 반말 as a subtraction: take 해요체, delete the 요, done. That works for statements and for the softest commands — 가요 becomes 가, 먹어요 becomes 먹어 — but the moment you want to ask, urge, or propose, the subtraction breaks. Casual Korean has its own mood endings — -니/-냐 for questions, -아라/어라 for firm commands, -자 for proposals — and none of them is "해요체 minus 요." Intimate speech is really a blend of two casual styles: soft statements, questions, and gentle commands come from 해체, while pointed questions, hard commands, and every proposal are borrowed from 한다체 (해라체). Learn 반말 as this parallel paradigm and it stops feeling patchy.

The two-style blend at a glance

The four sentence types don't all draw from the same well. Here is the map you are actually learning:

For the register logic of when you are even allowed to use any of this — who licenses 반말 with whom — see when 반말 is licensed. This page is about the forms: once you are speaking casually, how you build each mood.

One casual form, three of its four jobs

The bare -아/어 ending (the 해요체 form minus 요) is a workhorse: with the right intonation it does statements, questions, and soft commands all by itself.

This mirrors the 해요체 one-form-four-functions pattern — but notice the number: 해요체 does four jobs with -아/어요 (가요 can even mean "let's go"), while bare -아/어 does only three. The proposal function goes missing. You cannot say 같이 가 to mean "let's go together" — with rising tone it just asks "are we going together?" The missing fourth job is exactly the gap that 한다체's -자 fills. This is the single fact that explains why 반말 can't be pure "해요체 minus 요."

Statements: bare -아/어

Plain casual statements are the easy part. Attach -아/어 to the stem by vowel harmony, apply the usual contractions, and drop the 요.

Spoken flatly, a statement 가 or 먹어 reaches toward the listener — soft and interactive. That is what separates it from the emphatic, self-narrating 한다체 statement 간다 / 먹는다, which announces an action rather than sharing it. That contrast has its own page: 한다체 vs 해체.

Questions: -아/어? · -니? · -냐?

Casual questions come in three temperatures. The default and friendliest is simply -아/어 with rising intonation — the same string as the statement, distinguished by the tune.

The plain -니? ending adds a gentle, sometimes affectionate or slightly parental color. Parents, teachers, and older relatives use it toward juniors; friends use it for a soft, caring question.

The plain -냐? ending is the blunt one, borrowed straight from 한다체. It is punchy and common among close friends — but it can read as rough, even confrontational, and it carries a distinctly masculine, gruff flavor.

Commands: soft -아/어 vs firm -아라/어라

The everyday casual command is, again, just -아/어 — the exact same form as the statement, delivered as an instruction. It is gentle, like "go ahead and eat."

When you want more force — urging, insisting, a parent pushing a child, coaxing someone on — you switch to -아라/어라, the 한다체 imperative, chosen by vowel harmony (하다 → 해라).

Note the tone difference: 먹어 invites, 먹어라 pushes. Between peers, an out-of-nowhere -아라/어라 can sound scolding, so it lives most comfortably in encouragement (열심히 해라), parenting, coaching, and playful bossing.

Proposals: -자

There is only one casual proposal ending, and it too is borrowed from 한다체: -자, "let's." It attaches straight to the stem, with no vowel harmony to worry about.

Because -자 is the only casual "let's," there is no softer or blunter alternative inside 반말 the way there is for questions — for a gentler suggestion you step up a notch to -(으)ㄹ래 (같이 갈래? "wanna go together?") or to 해요체 (같이 가요).

The 요 trap: you can't just re-attach 요

Here is the error almost every English speaker makes. Having learned that 요 = polite, they try to make a casual command or proposal polite by adding 요 back: ×먹어라요, ×가자요. These forms do not exist. The endings -아라/어라 and -자 have no 요-form at all, because they were borrowed from 한다체, a style that has no 요 to begin with. To be polite, you don't tweak the casual ending — you switch to an entirely different construction.

Why 가자 and 가라 feel "double"

One last insight ties the page together. Because -자 (proposal) and -아라/어라 (command) are literally the 한다체 endings, the string 가자 or 가라 is simultaneously the casual thing you say to a friend and the plain-style form used in writing and in reported speech. 가자 is both "let's go" to your buddy and the form embedded in 가자고 했다 ("[he] said let's go"); 가라 is both "go!" to your kid and the form in 가라고 했다 ("[he] told [me] to go"). The register isn't in the ending — it's in who you're talking to. That is exactly why the plain-vs-intimate boundary needs a page of its own: for these overlapping moods, the same word wears two hats. The full 한다체 four-mood system, including how these endings feed indirect quotation, is on the 한다체 moods page.

Common Mistakes

1. Adding 요 to make a casual command or proposal polite. -아라/어라 and -자 have no 요-form.

2. Using bare -아/어 as a proposal. 같이 가 is a statement/question, not "let's go." The proposal is 가자.

3. Defaulting to blunt -냐? for every casual question. -냐 is gruff; the friendly default is -아/어? with rising tone.

4. Firing off -아라/어라 at a peer for an ordinary request. Between equals a bare -아라/어라 sounds scolding; use soft -아/어.

5. Assuming 반말 is just 해요체 with 요 removed. Questions (-니/-냐), firm commands (-아라/어라), and proposals (-자) are their own casual endings that never appear in 해요체.

Key Takeaways

• 반말 is a blend: statements and soft commands are 해체 (-아/어); pointed questions (-니/-냐), firm commands (-아라/어라), and proposals (-자) are borrowed from 한다체.
• Bare -아/어 covers statement, question, and soft command — but not proposal. The proposal gap is filled by -자.
• Casual questions run softest-to-roughest: -아/어? → -니? → -냐?; commands run gentle -아/어 vs firm -아라/어라.
• -아라/어라 and -자 have no 요-form — to be polite you switch endings entirely (같이 가요, 가세요), never ×가자요.
• 가자 and 가라 double as the plain/citation forms used in writing and reported speech — the register lives in who you address, not the ending.