에게서 / 한테서: 'From a Person'

If 한테 / 에게 is the arrow pointing to a person, 한테서 / 에게서 is the same arrow reversed — pointing from a person. It marks the giver, the sender, the origin: the friend a letter came from, the mother a rumor was heard from, the teacher a skill was learned from. English collapses all of this into one word, "from," and uses that same "from" for places too ("I heard it from Mom" / "I got it from the store"). Korean, true to form, keeps the two apart: a place source takes 에서, a person source takes 한테서 / 에게서. This page teaches the animate "from," its register split, and the one reflex — person vs place — that keeps tripping learners up.

The forms: 한테서 (spoken), 에게서 (written), 로부터 (formal)

The animate source has the same register split as the dative it mirrors, plus a third, more formal option:

You'll recognize the pattern: 한테 + 서, 에게 + 서. The extra 서 is the same "source" element that turns location 에 into source 에서. It attaches to the recipient-marking verbs' mirror image: 받다 (receive), 듣다 (hear), 배우다 (learn), 빌리다 (borrow).

In casual speech, 한테서 often loses its 서

Here's a wrinkle worth knowing. In everyday conversation, the 서 of 한테서 frequently drops, leaving plain 한테 to cover both directions — "to" and "from." Context and the verb sort out which is meant: with 주다 (give) 한테 reads as "to," with 받다 / 듣다 (receive / hear) it reads as "from."

The mirror: person source vs place source

This is the reflex to drill, and it's the exact twin of the 한테 vs 에 split you learned for the dative. English "from" serves both a person and a place; Korean does not:

• Source is a person / animal → 한테서 / 에게서 → 친구한테서 들었어요 ("heard it from a friend")
• Source is a place → 에서 → 도서관에서 빌렸어요 ("borrowed it from the library")

The cleanest way to feel this is a minimal pair, where the same verb takes different particles depending on whether the source is a place or a person:

Look closely: 학교에서 ("at / from the school," a place) versus 친구한테 ("from a friend," a person), both feeding 배우다. That split is invisible in English — "learn at school" / "learn from a friend" — but in Korean the particle carries it.

A note on 받다 and 에게(서)

One honest subtlety: with 받다 ("receive"), the giver can be marked with the plain dative 에게 / 한테 or the source form 에게서 / 한테서 — both are accepted, because 받다 already builds "from-ness" into its meaning. So 친구에게 받았어요 and 친구에게서 받았어요 are both fine. Adding 서 simply makes the "source" reading explicit and is never wrong. With pure hearing/learning verbs like 듣다 and 배우다, though, the source form (or reduced 한테) is what you'll actually hear.

There is no honorific "from"

The dative "to" has an honorific form — 께 — but the source "from" has no matching honorific particle. You cannot politely say ×할머니께서 들었어요 to mean "I heard it from Grandmother" (께서 marks a subject, not a source). So how do you honor the person you received something from? Korean sidesteps the problem: it reframes the sentence so the honored person becomes the subject of a giving verb, taking 께서.

Instead of "a gift I got from Grandmother" (which would need an honorific source Korean lacks), you say "a gift Grandmother gave." The respect rides on 께서 and the honorific verb 주시다, not on the source particle. This is a clean example of how honorification reshapes whole sentences, not just single words.

Common Mistakes

1. Using place-source 에서 for a person. This is the error, and it's a direct transfer from English "from." A person source can't take the place particle 에서.

2. Using 한테서 / 에게서 for a place. The mirror error — a place source takes 에서, never the animate form.

3. Using formal 로부터 with a close person in casual speech. 로부터 is stiff, written, official-sounding. From your mom or a friend, it sounds absurdly bureaucratic.

4. Slipping written 에게서 into casual chat. Grammatical, but bookish. Everyday speech wants 한테(서).

Key Takeaways

• 한테서 / 에게서 mark the animate source — the person you receive, hear, learn, or borrow from. They mirror the dative 한테 / 에게.
• Register: 한테서 (spoken), 에게서 (written), (으)로부터 (formal/official).
• In casual speech, 한테서 often reduces to 한테, and the verb disambiguates "to" (주다) from "from" (받다, 듣다).
• Keep person and place apart: person source → 한테서/에게서, place source → 에서.
• With 받다, the giver may take plain 에게/한테 or 에게서/한테서 — both are fine; the 서 just makes "from" explicit.