Short Negation: 안

The fastest way to say "not" in Korean is the little adverb 안. Drop it right in front of the verb or adjective and you're done: 가요 → 안 가요, 좋아요 → 안 좋아요. It's the negation you'll use constantly in conversation. There's exactly one placement quirk — the way noun+하다 verbs split it down the middle — and one meaning boundary to guard: 안 is not-by-choice, distinct from 못, which is can't.

The basic rule: 안 goes in front

Place 안 immediately before the verb or adjective. Nothing attaches, nothing conjugates — 안 is a free-standing adverb, so it stays put while the verb takes its normal ending.

It works identically on adjectives (which in Korean are really a kind of descriptive verb):

The one twist: noun+하다 action verbs split

Here's the rule everyone stumbles on. Many Korean verbs are a noun + 하다 ("do"): 공부하다 (study = "do study"), 운동하다 (exercise), 요리하다 (cook). When you negate one of these action verbs, 안 does not go in front of the whole word — it slips between the noun and 하다.

Why the split? Because 공부하다 is really two pieces — the noun 공부 ("study") plus the light verb 하다 ("do") — behaving almost like a phrase. 안 negates the doing, so it wedges in right before 하다, exactly where English would put "don't": "I don't [do] study." Once you see 공부하다 as "do studying," 공부 안 해요 ("study — not do") stops feeling weird.

But 하다-adjectives stay undivided

Now the twist inside the twist. Not every 하다 word splits. Descriptive 하다 words — the adjectives like 조용하다 (be quiet), 유명하다 (be famous), 필요하다 (be necessary) — are single, unsplittable units. Their 안 stays out front, just like any other adjective.

안 means "not by choice," not "can't"

The most important meaning boundary: 안 negates by will or plain fact — "don't / doesn't / isn't / won't (as a matter of choice)." It is not the same as 못, which negates by inability — "can't." This is a distinction English blurs and Korean insists on.

Both are grammatical; they just say different things. If your English sentence means "I'm unable to," you need 못, not 안 — see 안 vs 못 for the full decision.

What 안 does not negate: 있다 and 이다

Two of the most common words in Korean sidestep 안 entirely, and beginners waste a lot of energy trying to force it on them.

Existence (있다). To say "there isn't / I don't have," Korean doesn't say 안 있어요 — it has a dedicated negative-existence verb, 없어요. 있다 and 없다 are a matched pair, "there is" vs "there isn't," so the negation is built into the vocabulary rather than added with 안.

Identity (이다). The copula 이다 ("to be [something]") also refuses 안. Its negation is the separate word 아니다, giving 아니에요 / 아닙니다.

So keep 안 for ordinary action verbs and adjectives. For "there isn't," reach for 없다; for "isn't [a thing]," reach for 아니다. Trying to say 안 있어요 or 안 이에요 marks you instantly as a beginner.

안 stays put across tenses

One reassuring simplicity: 안 never changes and never moves for tense. Past, present, or future, it sits right in front of the verb, and the verb carries the tense ending. There's no separate "did not" auxiliary to conjugate the way English has.

Compare English, which reshuffles the whole verb phrase — "go / didn't go / won't go." Korean just keeps 안 in place and lets 가다 do the tense work: 안 가요, 안 갔어요, 안 갈 거예요.

Common Mistakes

1. Putting 안 in front of a noun+하다 action verb. The 안 must wedge before 하다.

2. Splitting a 하다-adjective. 조용하다 and friends are unsplittable; 안 stays out front.

3. Splitting 좋아하다 as if it were noun+하다. 좋아하다 ("to like") is one lexical verb built from 좋다, not a noun plus 하다 — so 안 goes out front.

4. Using 안 when you mean "can't." Choice vs ability.

Key Takeaways

• 안 goes directly before the verb or adjective: 안 가요, 안 좋아요.
• Noun+하다 action verbs split — 공부하다 → 공부 안 해요 — because 안 negates the doing.
• 하다-adjectives (조용하다, 유명하다) and lexical verbs like 좋아하다 don't split — 안 stays out front.
• 안 = not by choice / plain fact; for inability, use 못. The longer, more formal equivalent of 안 is -지 않다.