Polite Commands & Requests: -(으)세요 / -(으)십시오

Here is a fact that reorganizes how you think about Korean commands: the neutral, everyday way to tell someone "do X" is not a bare verb — it is -(으)세요. Where English can hand a stranger a plain, unmarked imperative ("Sit here," "Wait a moment") and stay perfectly civil, Korean has no such neutral imperative. The bare stem is intimate speech, reserved for close friends and children. For anyone you owe ordinary courtesy — a customer, a coworker, someone you just met — the default "please do X" is -(으)세요, and its formal register is -(으)십시오. This page teaches both, plus the handful of special honorific verbs that surface here.

How -(으)세요 is built — and why it is polite

-(으)세요 attaches to a verb stem and does two things at once: it issues a request or command, and it raises the person you are addressing. That second job is not an accident. Buried inside -(으)세요 is the subject honorific -시-, the same particle-raising element covered on the honorific -시-. Historically -(으)세요 is -(으)시- (honorific) + -어요 (the everyday polite ending), which contracted 시어요 → 셔요 → 세요. So when you say 앉으세요, you are literally saying "(please) honorably sit" — the courtesy is baked into the ending, not tacked on as a separate "please."

The allomorphy follows the usual 으-buffer logic:

• After a vowel stem or a ㄹ-stem: just -세요 (가세요, 하세요, 사세요).
• After a consonant stem: -으세요 (앉으세요, 읽으세요, 받으세요).

Notice 가세요 and 하세요 take no 으 (vowel-final stems), while 앉으세요 and 읽으세요 insert it (consonant-final stems). This is the single most common formation error, and we return to it at the bottom.

ㄹ-stems drop their ㄹ

Because -(으)세요 begins its consonant with ㅅ, a ㄹ-stem loses its ㄹ before it — the same elision you have already seen in 삽니다, 사는:

That last example shows a bonus: with rising intonation, -(으)세요 also asks a deferential question — 어디 가세요? "Where are you going?" So -(으)세요 covers both "please go" and, questioned, "are you going? / where are you going?"

The suppletive honorifics: 드세요, 주무세요, 계세요

Here is where -(으)세요 stops being purely mechanical. A small set of everyday verbs have special honorific stems that replace the plain verb entirely when you raise the addressee. You do not honorifically inflect the plain verb; you swap the whole word. These are covered in full under suppletive honorific verbs, but you meet them constantly in the imperative:

The pair 안녕히 가세요 / 안녕히 계세요 is worth memorizing as a set: you tell the person who is leaving 안녕히 가세요 ("go in peace"), and the person who is staying 안녕히 계세요 ("stay in peace"). Both are -(으)세요 commands — one on 가다, one on the honorific 계시다.

-(으)십시오: the formal register

-(으)십시오 is the imperative of the formal 하십시오체 — the crisp, deferential register of announcements, signage, public address, and service scripts. It is built on the same honorific -시- (시 + ㅂ시오), so like -(으)세요 it commands while elevating the addressee, but it adds formal distance. Where -(으)세요 sounds like a warm shop clerk, -(으)십시오 sounds like an airport announcement or a written notice. It shares its allomorphy — -십시오 after vowel/ㄹ, -으십시오 after a consonant.

For the same command across all six registers, see formal commands -(으)십시오 and the six speech levels.

"Do X" versus "do X for me": -아/어 주세요

One refinement English speakers should internalize early. -(으)세요 tells the addressee to perform an action on their own behalf — 앉으세요 "sit (yourself) down." When you want them to do something as a favor to you, you add the benefactive -아/어 주다 first, giving -아/어 주세요 "please do X (for me)." Compare 기다리세요 "wait" (a plain instruction to the addressee) with 기다려 주세요 "please wait (for me)," which is softer because it frames the action as a kindness.

That -아/어 주세요 request pattern — the most common way to ask for a favor — has its own page: see 주세요: making requests and the benefactive -아/어 주다. For now, just hold the distinction: 하세요 = "you do it," 해 주세요 = "do it for me."

Reframing for English speakers

The mental adjustment is this: in English, politeness on a command is optional decoration — you can say "Sit down" bluntly or "Please have a seat" warmly, but both are grammatical, and the bare version is not rude by default. In Korean, courtesy is structural. Issuing a command without the honorific frame — barking a bare stem at a stranger — is not "neutral," it is intimate speech misapplied, and it lands as abrupt or bossy. So the safe habit is: to anyone you would address politely, put -(으)세요 on your commands automatically, the way you automatically put -요 on your statements. You are not adding extra politeness; you are meeting the baseline.

Common Mistakes

1. Dropping the 으 after a consonant stem. A consonant-final stem needs the buffer vowel.

2. Using the plain verb where a suppletive honorific is expected. For an elder or guest, "eat" is 드세요, not 먹으세요.

3. Saying 자세요 instead of 주무세요 for "good night." 자다 has a suppletive honorific.

4. Reaching for a bare imperative with a stranger. The bare stem is intimate 반말; the polite command is -(으)세요.

5. Saying 안녕히 가세요 when the other person is the one staying. Match the verb to who is moving.

Key Takeaways

• -(으)세요 is the everyday polite "please do X." It embeds the honorific -시-, so it commands and raises the addressee. Allomorph: -세요 after vowel/ㄹ, -으세요 after a consonant.
• ㄹ-stems drop ㄹ before it: 살다 → 사세요, 만들다 → 만드세요.
• Learn the suppletive honorifics: 먹다/마시다 → 드세요, 자다 → 주무세요, 있다 → 계세요, 말하다 → 말씀하세요. Use these, not the plain verb, for people you honor.
• -(으)십시오 is the formal register — announcements, signage, service (어서 오십시오).
• -아/어 주세요 = "do X for me" (a favor), softer than the plain -(으)세요 command.
• Korean has no neutral bare imperative; put -(으)세요 on commands to anyone you owe courtesy.