The ㅎ irregular reaches its most systematic home in the color adjectives. If you want to say a single sentence about the color of the sky, a traffic light, or someone's face, you will conjugate a ㅎ-irregular adjective — and you will do it several times a day. This page nails down the colors, flags the one that behaves slightly differently (하얗다), and then draws the crucial boundary: ㅎ-final verbs are regular. The whole ㅎ picture turns out to split almost perfectly along the adjective/verb line.
Every ㅎ-final color adjective is irregular
Korean's basic pure-color words are adjectives ending in ㅎ, and they all follow the ㅎ rule to the letter: before an 아/어 ending the ㅎ drops and the leftover fuses to ㅐ; before an 으-ending (the attributive -(으)ㄴ) the ㅎ and the 으 both drop.
| Dictionary form | Color | -아/어요 | Attributive -(으)ㄴ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 빨갛다 | red | 빨개요 | 빨간 |
| 파랗다 | blue | 파래요 | 파란 |
| 노랗다 | yellow | 노래요 | 노란 |
| 까맣다 | black | 까매요 | 까만 |
| 하얗다 | white | 하얘요 | 하얀 |
| 동그랗다 | round | 동그래요 | 동그란 |
오늘은 하늘이 정말 파래요.
oneureun haneuri jeongmal paraeyo
The sky is really blue today. (파랗다 → 파래요)
너무 뛰었더니 얼굴이 빨개요.
neomu ttwieotdeoni eolguri ppalgaeyo
I ran so much my face is red. (빨갛다 → 빨개요)
병아리가 노래요.
byeong-ariga noraeyo
The chick is yellow. (노랗다 → 노래요)
빨간 신호에는 멈춰야 돼요.
ppalgan sinho-eneun meomchwoya dwaeyo
You have to stop at a red light. (빨갛다 → 빨간)
The one wrinkle: 하얗다 → 하얘요
Five of the six colors above fuse to ㅐ, exactly as the general ㅎ rule predicts. The exception is 하얗다 ("be white"), whose stem vowel ㅑ forces the fusion to ㅒ instead: 하얘요, 하얀. This is the single spelling most learners get wrong (writing ×하애요), and it is worth memorizing as its own fact. The related 노랗다 and 빨갛다 keep ㅐ; only the ㅑ-stem 하얗다 (and the intensive 새하얗다 → 새하얘요) go to ㅒ.
밤새 눈이 와서 온 세상이 하얘요.
bamsae nuni waseo on sesang-i hayaeyo
It snowed all night, so the whole world is white. (하얗다 → 하얘요)
하얀 눈밭을 보니까 기분이 좋아요.
hayan nunbateul bonikka gibuni joayo
Seeing the white snow field puts me in a good mood. (하얗다 → 하얀)
The boundary: ㅎ-final verbs are regular
Now the line that organizes everything. A stem ending in ㅎ is irregular only if it is an adjective. ㅎ-final verbs are perfectly regular: they keep their ㅎ in the spelling and simply liaise (the ㅎ weakens or deletes in pronunciation between vowels, but the spelling and the endings are ordinary). Compare:
| Verb (ㅎ-final) | Meaning | -아/어요 | Attributive |
|---|---|---|---|
| 넣다 | put in | 넣어요 | 넣은 / 넣는 |
| 놓다 | put down | 놓아요 (놔요) | 놓은 / 놓는 |
| 낳다 | give birth | 낳아요 | 낳은 / 낳는 |
| 쌓다 | pile up | 쌓아요 | 쌓은 / 쌓는 |
Notice these take a plain -아/어요 with the stem vowel intact — 넣어요, not ×내요; 놓아요, not ×놔... via fusion. There is no ㅐ-fusion here at all.
가방에 이 책 좀 넣어 주세요.
gabang-e i chaek jom neoeo juseyo
Please put this book in the bag. (넣다 → 넣어요, regular)
짐은 여기에 놓아 주세요.
jimeun yeogie noa juseyo
Please put your bags down here. (놓다 → 놓아요, regular)
옆집 고양이가 새끼를 다섯 마리나 낳았어요.
yeopjip goyang-iga saekkireul daseot marina naasseoyo
The cat next door had five kittens. (낳다 → 낳았어요, regular)
One thing that trips people up: 놓다 has a valid colloquial contraction 놔요 (오 + 아 → 와), and 놓아 → 놔, 놓았다 → 놨다. But that is an ordinary vowel contraction on a regular stem — it is not the ㅎ-fusion that produces 그래요. Don't let 놔요 fool you into thinking 놓다 is irregular.
좋다: the lone regular ㅎ-adjective
If the split were perfectly clean — adjectives irregular, verbs regular — there would be nothing left to memorize. There is exactly one exception going the other way: 좋다 ("be good"), an adjective ending in ㅎ that is nonetheless regular. It keeps its ㅎ and takes plain endings: 좋아요, 좋은, 좋고. It never fuses to ×좨요.
오늘 날씨가 참 좋아요.
oneul nalssiga cham joayo
The weather is really nice today. (좋다 → 좋아요, regular)
좋은 사람 있으면 소개해 주세요.
joeun saram isseumyeon sogaehae juseyo
If you know someone nice, introduce them to me. (좋다 → 좋은)
For completeness: adjectives whose stem ends in an ㅎ-cluster — 많다 (ㄶ, "be many"), 괜찮다 (ㄶ, "be okay"), 싫다 (ㅀ, "be disliked") — are also regular (많아요, 괜찮아요, 싫어요). So the honest rule is: single-ㅎ adjectives are irregular except 좋다; single-ㅎ verbs and all ㅎ-cluster stems are regular.
낳다 vs 낫다: a spelling minefield
Two verbs sound almost identical in the polite form but are spelled and classed completely differently — and confusing them is one of the most common spelling errors in Korean, made even by native speakers:
- 낳다 ("give birth") is a regular ㅎ verb: 낳아요 [나아요], 낳았어요.
- 낫다 ("get better / heal," also "be better than") is a ㅅ irregular: the ㅅ drops with no contraction → 나아요, 나았어요.
Both surface as [나아요] in speech, but the spelling encodes the difference: 낳다 keeps ㅎ, 낫다 loses ㅅ. So "I recovered from my cold" is 감기가 다 나았어요 (from 낫다), and writing ×감기가 낳았어요 literally says the cold gave birth — a genuinely funny error that plasters Korean social media.
이제 감기가 다 나았어요.
ije gamgiga da naasseoyo
I've completely recovered from my cold now. (낫다, ㅅ-irregular → 나았어요)
언니가 예쁜 딸을 낳았어요.
eonniga yeppeun ttareul naasseoyo
My older sister had a lovely daughter. (낳다, regular → 낳았어요)
Common Mistakes
1. Making 좋다 irregular. 좋다 is the lone regular ㅎ-adjective — no fusion.
❌ 오늘 날씨가 좨요.
Wrong — 좋다 is regular → 좋아요, never ×좨요.
✅ 오늘 날씨가 좋아요.
oneul nalssiga joayo
The weather is nice today.
2. Making a ㅎ verb fuse. 넣다/놓다 are regular; the stem vowel stays.
❌ 가방에 책을 내요.
Wrong — 내요 is from 내다; 넣다 is regular → 넣어요.
✅ 가방에 책을 넣어요.
gabang-e chaegeul neoeoyo
I'm putting the book in the bag.
3. Writing 하얘요 with ㅐ. White fuses to ㅒ, not ㅐ.
❌ 눈이 정말 하애요.
Wrong — the ㅑ-stem fuses to ㅒ → 하얘요, not ×하애요.
✅ 눈이 정말 하얘요.
nuni jeongmal hayaeyo
The snow is really white.
4. Using -은 on a color attributive. The attributive is -ㄴ with the ㅎ gone.
❌ 파랗은 하늘이 예뻐요.
Wrong — ㅎ drops before -ㄴ → 파란 하늘.
✅ 파란 하늘이 예뻐요.
paran haneuri yeppeoyo
The blue sky is pretty.
5. Confusing 낳다 and 낫다. "Heal" is 낫다 (ㅅ-irregular); 낳다 means "give birth."
❌ 빨리 낳으세요.
Wrong — that tells someone to give birth quickly; 'get well soon' is 나으세요 (from 낫다).
✅ 빨리 나으세요.
ppalli naeuseyo
Get well soon. (from 낫다)
Key Takeaways
- Every ㅎ-final color adjective is irregular: 파랗다 → 파래요/파란, 빨갛다 → 빨개요/빨간, 까맣다 → 까매요/까만.
- 하얗다 is the wrinkle — it fuses to ㅒ: 하얘요, 하얀.
- ㅎ-final verbs are regular: 넣어요, 놓아요 (놔요), 낳아요, 쌓아요 — no fusion.
- 좋다 is the lone regular ㅎ-adjective (좋아요, 좋은); ㅎ-cluster adjectives (많다, 싫다, 괜찮다) are regular too.
- 낳다 (give birth, regular) ≠ 낫다 (heal, ㅅ-irregular) — both sound like [나아요] but "get well soon" is 나으세요.
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