고 / (이)라고: The Quotative Marker (Overview)

To report what someone said, thought, asked, or ordered, Korean attaches a quotative marker to the quoted material and follows it with a "saying" verb — 하다 ("say"), 말하다 ("speak"), 물어보다 ("ask"), 생각하다 ("think"). The marker has two shapes depending on whether you are quoting the exact words or paraphrasing: (이)라고 for direct quotation and 고 (fused onto a reshaped sentence ending) for indirect quotation. This page is a map of the whole system — enough to recognise and build basic reported speech — and it points you to the dedicated pages that drill each sentence type in full.

The reframing: there is no word for "that"

English builds reported speech with a conjunction: "He said that he's busy," "She asked whether I'm coming." Korean has no such word. Instead, it does two things at once: it reshapes the quoted verb's ending into a plain form, and it cliticizes 고 onto that ending. The "that" of English is spread across the ending and the marker — there is nothing to translate it with, and trying to insert one is the first mistake to unlearn.

Everything in "that he's busy" is carried by 바쁘다고 — the adjective 바쁘다 in its plain form, plus 고. There is no separate word doing the work of "that."

Direct quotation: (이)라고

Direct quotation preserves the speaker's original words verbatim, usually inside Korean quotation marks “ ”, and marks them with (이)라고 — 라고 after a vowel, 이라고 after a 받침. It is essentially the copula-based quote form: you are saying "[they] said, quote, X, unquote."

The quoted chunk keeps whatever ending the original speaker actually used — 안녕, 가자, a full polite sentence, anything — because you are repeating it word for word. (이)라고 just wraps it and hands it to the saying verb.

Indirect quotation: -고 on a reshaped ending, by sentence type

Indirect quotation is where most of the action is, and where the four sentence types each get their own ending. You drop the quotation marks, convert the verb to a plain form appropriate to the sentence type, and attach 고. Here is the whole quartet:

Statements need one caution: an action verb takes -ㄴ다고/-는다고 (the plain declarative), while an adjective or 이다 takes plain -다고 directly. So 운동하다 → 운동한다고, but 바쁘다 → 바쁘다고.

Tense lives inside the reshaped ending, exactly as in a normal plain sentence: past statements use -았/었다고 (갔다고 했어요, "said [he] went"), so you conjugate for tense before attaching 고, not on the outer saying verb.

The copula's irregular indirect form

One form breaks the pattern and must be memorised. When the quoted sentence ends in the copula 이다 ("is/am/are"), its indirect statement form is (이)라고, not the ×이다고 you would predict.

So 학생이다 becomes 학생이라고 (batchim → 이라고) and 의사다 becomes 의사라고 (vowel → 라고). Note that this is the same 라고 shape as direct quotation — which is exactly why the two quotative jobs look related, and why the copula's reported form and the "is called" construction share a page. That naming use, N(이)라고 하다 ("is called N"), gets the full treatment on (이)라고 하다: 'is called / named'.

This is a signpost — where to go next

This page is deliberately a map. Each sentence type has a dedicated page with the full conjugation tables, contractions, and tense/honorific interactions:

• Statements → reported statements with -다고
• Questions → reported questions with -냐고
• Commands → reported commands with -(으)라고
• Proposals → reported proposals with -자고
• The big picture → quotation overview

The contracted spoken forms (-대요 from -다고 해요, -냬요, -래요, -재요) and the shifts that happen to pronouns and deictics when you move from direct to indirect are covered there too.

Common Mistakes

1. Attaching 고 to a polite (요) form instead of reshaping to plain. The quoted verb must be converted to its plain ending before 고 — you cannot glue 고 onto 해요-style speech.

2. Using the statement ending for a command. "Told me to come" is a command, so it needs -(으)라고, not statement -다고.

3. Regularising the copula to ×이다고. After 이다, the reported form is the irregular 이라고.

4. Forgetting -ㄴ다/는다 on an action verb. Adjectives take plain -다고 (바쁘다고), but an action verb's plain declarative is -ㄴ다/는다, so its reported form is -ㄴ다고/-는다고.

Key Takeaways

• Korean reports speech with a quotative marker + a saying verb — there is no word for "that."
• Direct quotation (exact words) uses (이)라고: 민수가 “안녕”이라고 했어요.
• Indirect quotation reshapes the verb to a plain ending and adds 고, split by sentence type: -(느)ㄴ다고 (statement), -냐고 (question), -(으)라고 (command), -자고 (proposal).
• Action-verb statements need -ㄴ다고/-는다고 (운동한다고); adjectives and 이다 use plain -다고 / (이)라고 — and the copula's form is the irregular 이라고, never ×이다고.
• This is a map; for full tables and the spoken contractions (-대요/-냬요/-래요/-재요) follow through to the quotation pages in Syntax.