드리다: To Give (Humble) — vs 주다 and 주시다

English has one word for handing something over: give. It does not care who gives to whom — "I gave the teacher a book" and "I gave the dog a bone" use the identical verb. Korean refuses to be so flat. It chooses the verb of giving by the social direction of the transfer: giving upward to a superior is not the same act, linguistically, as giving sideways to a friend or receiving from someone above you. This page teaches 드리다, the humble "give" for upward transfers, and sets it inside the three-way system it belongs to: 주다 (I give to an equal or junior), 드리다 (I give to a superior — humble), and 주시다 (a superior gives to me).

One English "give," three Korean verbs

Think of a gift moving between two people of different rank. Korean asks a question English never bothers with: which way is it moving?

Notice that all three sentences translate into the same English "give." The Korean verb, not the translation, tells you who outranks whom.

Why 드리다 lowers you, not the other person

드리다 is a humble (겸양) verb. That is a different mechanism from the honorific -(으)시-, and the difference is the single most useful thing on this page. -(으)시- raises the subject — the person doing the action. 드리다 does the opposite: it lowers the speaker's own action to make room for the honored recipient above it. You are not honoring yourself; you are shrinking your act of giving into something modest offered upward.

That is why 드리다 pairs so naturally with the humble "I," 저, and with the honorific dative particle 께 on the recipient. The whole clause tilts in one consistent direction: I (저, low) give (드리다, low) to the teacher (께, high).

Note what happens with Sino-Korean action nouns like 전화 (a phone call) and 연락 (contact): plain speech says 전화(를) 하다, 연락(을) 하다, but the humble version fuses the noun straight onto 드리다 — 전화드리다, 연락드리다 — written as one word. This is an extremely common everyday pattern; a Korean employee texting a client will almost always write 연락드리겠습니다, never 연락하겠습니다.

드리다 as a benefactive auxiliary: doing something for a superior

Beyond "give an object," 드리다 has a second life as the humble version of the benefactive auxiliary -아/어 주다 ("do something for someone"). When the person you are doing the favor for is a superior, -아/어 주다 becomes -아/어 드리다. You are still "giving" — but what you give is the action itself.

This is the reflex to reach for whenever you offer a favor to a customer, an elder, or a boss. 도와줄게요 to your friend becomes 도와드릴게요 to your manager; the switch from 주다 to 드리다 is exactly what marks the respect.

말씀드리다: to tell or inform (humble)

One benefactive-드리다 form is common enough to learn as its own word: 말씀드리다, "to tell / inform," built from the noun 말씀 plus 드리다. It is what you use to raise something with a superior — the humble counterpart to a boss's 말씀하시다 ("to speak," honorific). You lower your own telling; you do not honor it.

The direction logic is the same as everywhere else: words coming down from a superior are 말씀하시다 (elevated); your words going up to a superior are 말씀드리다 (humbled). Using 말씀하시다 for your own speech accidentally honors yourself — see 돌아가시다 & 말씀하시다 for the full 말씀 picture.

Conjugating 드리다

드리다 is a regular 이-stem verb, so it behaves exactly like other ordinary 이-stem verbs. The stem 드리- meets a following 어 and contracts to 드려:

Common Mistakes

Mistake 1: Plain 주다 to a superior. The most frequent transfer error — using the neutral verb where the recipient outranks you. Once 께 marks the recipient, the verb must go humble.

Mistake 2: Using 드리다 when a superior gives to YOU. 드리다 is only for giving upward. When the direction reverses — a superior gives down to you — the verb is 주시다 (주다 + honorific -시-), because now the honored person is the giver, the subject.

Mistake 3: Self-honorifying your own giving with 주시다. If you are the giver to a superior, you humble yourself with 드리다 — you never put -시- on your own act.

Mistake 4: Benefactive 주다 for a favor done for a superior. A favor offered upward takes -아/어 드리다, not -아/어 주다.

Key Takeaways

• 드리다 is the humble "give" for transfers that move upward, to a superior; it lowers your own act, it does not honor the other person with -시-.
• The give-system is three-way: 주다 (to an equal/junior), 드리다 (to a superior — humble), 주시다 (a superior gives to you — 주다 + -시-).
• Korean picks the verb by the social vector of the transfer, not by the neutral act of "giving."
• Sino-Korean action nouns fuse onto it: 전화드리다, 연락드리다, 말씀드리다.
• As a benefactive, -아/어 드리다 is the humble version of -아/어 주다 (도와주다 → 도와드리다).
• Pair it with humble 저 and honorific 께 — the whole clause tilts one way: you low, the recipient high.