Reported Commands: -(으)라고 하다 (and 달라고 vs 주라고)

English reports a command with a bare infinitive: she told me *to go, the doctor told me to quit smoking*. One frame — told X to VERB — covers every order, no matter who benefits from it. Korean is more demanding. To report an imperative it wraps the original command in -(으)라고 and hands it to a speech verb like 하다 ("say"), 말하다 ("tell"), or 시키다 ("order/make"). And in one place it forces a distinction English simply does not have: when the command is give me that versus give it to them, Korean makes you choose between 달라고 and 주라고. Getting that choice wrong is one of the most persistent intermediate errors, so it gets its own section below.

Building the reported command: -(으)라고 하다

Take the original imperative, strip it down to the verb stem, and attach -(으)라고, then close with a speech verb. The linking vowel follows the usual rule: -라고 after a vowel stem or a ㄹ-stem, -으라고 after a consonant stem.

Notice that the person who receives the order is marked with the dative -한테/-에게, and the person doing the ordering is the subject. The reported clause itself is stripped of any politeness ending — you never carry a -요 or -세요 inside -(으)라고 (that neutralization is covered on deixis shifts and contractions).

Only verbs — never adjectives

Imperatives command actions, so -(으)라고 attaches only to action verbs. You cannot order someone to be a quality, which means adjectives (descriptive verbs) are locked out. To report "he told me to be quiet," Korean turns the adjective 조용하다 into the action phrase 조용히 하다 ("do quietly / keep quiet") and commands that.

The negative: -지 말라고 하다

To report a prohibition — "told me not to VERB" — you report the negative imperative. The everyday "don't" command is -지 마(라), built on the auxiliary 말다; its reported form is -지 말라고 하다.

There is one spelling trap worth flagging honestly: the direct command drops the ㄹ (하지 마라), but the reported command keeps it (하지 말라고). Many native speakers do say 하지 마라고 casually, but the standard written form is 말라고, and that is what TOPIK expects. There is no deeper logic here — just memorize that reported prohibitions restore the ㄹ.

달라고 vs 주라고 — the split English hides

Here is where Korean asks a question English never poses. The verb 주다 means "give," but the direction of the giving decides which reported form you use:

• If the thing is to come to the original speaker or their side ("give it to me / to us"), use 달라고.
• If the thing is to go to a third party ("give it to him / to her / to them"), use 주라고.

달라 is a special suppletive request-form of 주다 that exists precisely for asking someone to give to the speaker; 주라 is the ordinary imperative of 주다. English flattens both into asked me to give, so learners reach for 주라고 by default and get it wrong half the time.

The test is simple: trace where the object ends up. If it lands with the person who issued the request (or someone on their side), that is 달라고. If it lands with anyone else, that is 주라고. Notice that in 도와 달라고, the "thing given" is the favor of helping — the benefactive -아/어 주다 construction plugs straight into this same split, which is why "please do X for me" so often surfaces as -아/어 달라고.

For the honorific side of giving (드리다 up to a superior, and how 주다/드리다 interact with 달라고), see juda vs deurida.

-(으)라고 the command vs -(이)라고 the statement

Because both endings contain 라고, learners blur them, but they are two different animals. -(으)라고 is the command quotative (verb stem + 라고). -(이)라고 is the copula quotative — the reported form of "X is Y" — attaching to a noun (after a consonant, -이라고; after a vowel, -라고). Compare:

• 저 사람한테 가라고 했어요 — "[Someone] told me to go to that person." (command on the verb 가다)
• 저 사람이 의사라고 했어요 — "[Someone] said that person is a doctor." (statement on the noun 의사)

The giveaway is what sits in front of 라고: a verb stem signals a command, a noun signals a copula statement. Keep that in view and the shared 라고 stops being confusing. (The copula quotative is treated in full on reported statements with -다고.)

Common Mistakes

Mistake 1 — Using 주라고 when you are the recipient. This is the signature error. If the favor or object comes back to the speaker, it must be 달라고.

Mistake 2 — Attaching -(으)라고 to an adjective. You cannot command a quality into being; convert it to an action with 하다.

Mistake 3 — Forgetting -으- after a consonant stem. A consonant-final stem needs the linking vowel 으.

Mistake 4 — Using 안 for a reported prohibition. "Told me not to go" is not the negated command ×안 가라고; the prohibitive is -지 말라고.

Key Takeaways

• Report a command with verb stem + -(으)라고 + 하다/말하다/시키다: -라고 after a vowel or ㄹ-stem, -으라고 after a consonant.
• The reported clause is plain — all politeness endings drop before -(으)라고.
• Prohibitions use -지 말라고 하다 (the ㄹ returns: 하지 마라 → 하지 말라고).
• -(으)라고 attaches only to action verbs, never adjectives — turn the adjective into 조용히 하다 and command that.
• 달라고 = give/do it for the speaker's side; 주라고 = give/do it for a third party. English has no morpheme for this — trace where the object ends up.
• Don't confuse command -(으)라고 (verb stem in front) with copula-statement -(이)라고 (noun in front).