Colloquial Contractions: 뭐→머, 것→거, 이거/그거/저거

There is a gap between the Korean in your textbook and the Korean coming out of a native speaker's mouth, and a huge share of that gap is contraction. A textbook writes 이것은 무엇입니까; a friend says 이게 뭐야. The words are the same, but nearly every one has shrunk. These reductions are not laziness and they are not slang — they are the default texture of spoken Korean, and learning to hear (and produce) them is one of the fastest ways to stop sounding like a robot reading a dialogue aloud.

This page covers the high-frequency lexical contractions of casual speech: the bound noun 것 → 거, the demonstrative cluster 이것/그것/저것 → 이거/그거/저거, the case-marked blends 이게/그걸/저건, the pronoun-plus-particle fusions 난/전/넌/날/널, and the question word 무엇 → 뭐 → 머. These are different from the obligatory conjugation contractions (like 하 + 아 → 해) covered under vowel-stem contractions — those are baked into the grammar and required at every register. The ones here are register-driven: standard in speech, optional in writing.

The reframe for English speakers: this is "it's, I'm, 'em"

English does exactly this and you never think about it. "It is" becomes it's, "I am" becomes I'm, "them" becomes 'em, "want to" becomes wanna. In speech these feel almost obligatory — nobody says "I am going to the store" out loud in a relaxed tone — but you'd write the full forms in a formal document. Korean's 거/이게/난 work the identical way: fully standard, prestige-neutral, expected in conversation, spelled out in careful writing. So 거 in a chat with a friend is as normal as "I'm" in English. It is not the kind of nonstandard reduction we'll meet on the colloquial ending reductions page (things like 할려고), which are stigmatized in writing. Everything on this page is clean, correct Korean.

The unifying pattern is simple: a noun or pronoun plus its particle collapses into a single syllable. 이것 + 이 doesn't stay 이것이 in speech — it fuses into 이게. Once you see the mechanism, the whole set stops looking like a list to memorize and starts looking like one rule applied over and over.

것 → 거: the workhorse bound noun

것 is the general "thing / one" bound noun ("the red one," "a good thing"). In speech it is almost always 거. You will hear 좋은 거 far more than 좋은 것, and 먹을 거 far more than 먹을 것.

The last two show 이거, which is just 이것 (this thing) with the same 것 → 거 reduction. That brings us to the demonstrative set.

이거 / 그거 / 저거: the demonstrative cluster

The three-way demonstrative 이것 (this), 그것 (that, near you / just mentioned), 저것 (that over there) all reduce their 것 to 거 in speech:

The case-marked blends: 이게, 그걸, 저건

Here is where the fusion gets interesting — and where learners freeze, because these forms look nothing like their source. When 이거/그거/저거 take a particle, the two merge into a single syllable. Line them up and the logic is perfectly regular:

Pronoun + particle fusions: 난, 전, 넌, 날, 널

The exact same collapse happens with the personal pronouns 나 (I, casual), 저 (I, humble), 너 (you, casual). Add the topic particle 는 and it fuses to a final ㄴ; add the object particle 를 and it fuses to a final ㄹ:

Notice the last one mixes registers cleanly: 전 (casual contraction of the humble 저는) still sits inside a polite 해요체 sentence. The contraction is about tempo and casualness, not about dropping politeness — you can be perfectly polite and still say 전 rather than 저는.

무엇 → 뭐 → 머: the three levels of "what"

The question word "what" has a full form 무엇, a standard spoken form 뭐, and a very casual form 머 that shows up mostly in fast speech and texting.

Spoken vs written: the same sentence, two textures

Put the reductions side by side and the register jump is obvious. This is the difference between sounding like a person and sounding like a textbook prompt:

Both are correct Korean. But saying 이것은 무엇입니까 to a friend over coffee lands exactly like saying "What is this object?" in stiff, over-enunciated English — grammatically flawless, socially bizarre. The reverse mistake, writing 이게 머야 into a business report, is just as jarring in the other direction.

Common Mistakes

1. Over-formalizing every noun in casual speech. The most common learner tell: pronouncing full forms in conversation because that's what the textbook showed.

2. Writing texting-level reductions into formal prose. 머 and (to a lesser degree) 거 belong in speech and chat, not reports or essays.

3. Saying ×이거가 for the subject. The subject of 이거 is 이게, not 이거가.

4. Confusing 뭘 (object) with 뭐가 (subject). 뭘 is 무엇을 — an object. To mark "what" as the subject ("what is the problem?"), you need 뭐가.

5. Assuming the contractions drop politeness. 난/전/거 are about casualness of tempo, not about being rude. 전 sits happily in a polite sentence (전 잘 모르겠어요), and refusing to contract does not make you more polite — it just makes you sound like a reading exercise.

Key Takeaways

• 것 → 거, and 이것/그것/저것 → 이거/그거/저거 are standard casual Korean, like English "it's / 'em."
• Case blends fuse the particle in: 이것이 → 이게, 그것을 → 그걸, 저것은 → 저건. The subject of 이거 is 이게, never ×이거가.
• Pronouns fuse the same way: 나는 → 난, 저는 → 전, 너는 → 넌, 나를 → 날, 무엇을 → 뭘.
• "What" has three registers: 무엇 (written) → 뭐 (spoken) → 머 (texting).
• Use the reduced forms in speech and chat; spell them out in formal writing. The mismatch — texting like a textbook, or writing like you text — is the error to avoid.