-리- is the member of the passive-suffix family (이/히/리/기) that attaches to stems ending in ㄹ, plus a handful of ㄷ-irregular verbs whose ㄷ turns into ㄹ before the suffix. 열다 "open" becomes 열리다 "be opened"; 팔다 "sell" becomes 팔리다 "be sold"; 듣다 "hear" becomes 들리다 "be heard." Phonologically -리- is the cleanest suffix in the family — no aspiration, just a doubled ㄹ (romanized ll) that you can hear as a crisp geminate. Semantically, though, it hides two of the busiest verbs in the language, 걸리다 and 풀리다, whose meanings sprawl far past anything English would call a passive.
How -리- makes a passive
Drop 리 in after the stem's ㄹ: 열 + 리 + 다 → 열리다. The result is intransitive, with the former object promoted to subject.
문이 저절로 열렸어요.
muni jeojeollo yeollyeosseoyo
The door opened by itself.
옆방에서 음악 소리가 들려요.
yeopbang-eseo eumak soriga deullyeoyo
I can hear music from the next room. (lit. the sound of music is heard)
Notice 들려요 — where English says "I can hear," Korean makes the sound the subject and lets it "be heard." This is the same shift you saw with 보이다 "be visible": Korean prefers to say the thing presents itself to the senses, rather than that a person actively perceives it.
The -리- inventory
| Base verb | Passive | RR | Core meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 열다 (open) | 열리다 | yeollida | be opened |
| 듣다 (hear) | 들리다 | deullida | be heard |
| 팔다 (sell) | 팔리다 | pallida | be sold |
| 밀다 (push) | 밀리다 | millida | be pushed; be backed up/behind |
| 물다 (bite) | 물리다 | mullida | be bitten |
| 걸다 (hang) | 걸리다 | geollida | be hung; get caught; take (time); catch (illness) |
| 풀다 (untie/solve) | 풀리다 | pullida | be solved; come loose; thaw; be relieved |
The 듣다 row is the odd one out: 듣다 ends in ㄷ, not ㄹ, but it's a ㄷ-irregular verb, so its ㄷ becomes ㄹ before a vowel-initial suffix, and then -리- attaches — 듣 → 들 → 들리다. That is why "be heard" lands in the -리- column despite the base spelling. The rest of the set is plainly ㄹ-final.
이 책은 요즘 정말 잘 팔려요.
i chaegeun yojeum jeongmal jal pallyeoyo
This book is selling really well these days.
일이 밀려서 주말에도 출근했어요.
iri millyeoseo jumaredo chulgeunhaesseoyo
Work piled up, so I went in on the weekend too.
모기한테 물려서 다리가 가려워요.
mogihante mullyeoseo dariga garyeowoyo
I got bitten by a mosquito and my leg is itchy.
걸리다: the Swiss-army passive
걸리다 is one of the highest-frequency verbs in Korean, and almost none of its uses translate as an English passive. Its base 걸다 means "hang / hook / place," and 걸리다 is what happens to something that gets hooked — literally or figuratively. Learn each sense as its own collocation.
여기서 학교까지 걸어서 십 분 걸려요.
yeogiseo hakgyokkaji georeoseo sip bun geollyeoyo
It takes ten minutes on foot from here to school.
어제부터 감기에 걸려서 목이 아파요.
eojebuteo gamgie geollyeoseo mogi apayo
I caught a cold yesterday and my throat hurts.
스웨터가 문고리에 걸렸어요.
seuwaeteoga mungorie geollyeosseoyo
My sweater got caught on the door handle.
거실 벽에 큰 그림이 걸려 있어요.
geosil byeoge keun geurimi geollyeo isseoyo
A big painting is hanging on the living-room wall.
"Take (time)," "catch (a cold)," "get snagged," "be hung" — one Korean verb, four English translations. The thread that ties them together is the image of something getting caught or hooked onto something: time gets hooked up by the distance, an illness hooks onto you, cloth snags on a hook. If you keep that mental picture, 걸리다 stops feeling like four unrelated words.
풀리다: coming undone in every sense
풀리다, from 풀다 "untie / solve / release," is nearly as versatile. It covers a knot coming loose, a problem getting solved, weather warming up, and tension easing.
드디어 수학 문제가 풀렸어요.
deudieo suhak munjega pullyeosseoyo
The math problem finally got solved.
신발 끈이 자꾸 풀려요.
sinbal kkeuni jakku pullyeoyo
My shoelaces keep coming untied.
주말부터 날씨가 좀 풀린대요.
jumalbuteo nalssiga jom pullindaeyo
They say the weather will warm up a bit from the weekend. (relayed)
따뜻한 물로 목욕하면 피로가 풀려요.
ttatteutan mullo mogyokamyeon piroga pullyeoyo
A warm bath relieves fatigue. (lit. fatigue gets released)
Watch the three near-homographs of 들리다
들리다 "be heard" sits dangerously close to two other verbs. 들르다 means "drop by / stop in," and 들이다 is a causative ("let in, put in"). Their conjugations diverge just enough to trip you:
| Verb | Meaning | Past (해요체) | RR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 들리다 | be heard | 들렸어요 | deullyeosseoyo |
| 들르다 | drop by | 들렀어요 | deulleosseoyo |
| 들이다 | let in / put in (causative) | 들였어요 | deuryeosseoyo |
들르다 is an 으-irregular (the ㅡ drops before 어), so its past is 들렀어요, not ×들렸어요. Keep the meanings straight by their subjects: a sound 들려요, a person 들러요.
Common Mistakes
1. Double-marking with -지다. 열리다 already is the passive; 열려지다 stacks a second passive on top.
❌ 창문이 저절로 열려졌어요.
Double passive — 열리다 already carries it.
✅ 창문이 저절로 열렸어요.
changmuni jeojeollo yeollyeosseoyo
The window opened by itself.
2. Confusing 들리다 (be heard) with 들르다 (drop by). Writing the "drop by" verb as 들렸어요 is a classic slip.
❌ 집에 오는 길에 편의점에 들렸어요.
Wrong — this reads 'was heard'; 'dropped by' is 들렀어요.
✅ 집에 오는 길에 편의점에 들렀어요.
jibe oneun gire pyeonuijeome deulleosseoyo
I dropped by the convenience store on the way home.
3. Calquing English "take (time)" with a transfer verb. "It takes 30 minutes" is 걸려요, not a possession or motion verb.
❌ 여기까지 삼십 분을 가져요.
Wrong — 'take time' is 걸리다, not 가지다 'have/hold'.
✅ 여기까지 삼십 분 걸려요.
yeogikkaji samsip bun geollyeoyo
It takes 30 minutes to get here.
4. Reaching for -히- on a ㄹ-stem. ㄹ-final stems take 리, never 히.
❌ 가게 문이 아직 안 열혔어요.
Wrong suffix — 열다 takes 리: 열렸어요.
✅ 가게 문이 아직 안 열렸어요.
gage muni ajik an yeollyeosseoyo
The shop door hasn't opened yet.
Key Takeaways
- -리- is the suffix passive for ㄹ-final stems (and ㄷ-irregulars, whose ㄷ→ㄹ first): 열리다, 팔리다, 밀리다, 물리다, 걸리다, 풀리다, and 듣다 → 들리다.
- Phonologically clean — a geminate ㄹㄹ (yeollida, pallida), no aspiration.
- 걸리다 and 풀리다 are polysemous workhorses: 걸리다 = take time / catch a cold / get snagged / be hung; 풀리다 = be solved / come loose / thaw / be relieved. Learn the collocations whole.
- Keep 들리다 (be heard), 들르다 (drop by), and 들이다 (causative) apart, and never double-mark with -지다 (×열려지다).
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Start learning Korean→Related Topics
- Morphological Passive -히-TOPIK 3 — The passive suffix -히- turns transitive verbs whose stem ends in ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, or ㄺ into passives — 닫다 → 닫히다 'be closed', 잡다 → 잡히다 'be caught', 막다 → 막히다 'be blocked/congested' — with the ㅎ fusing into an aspirated sound.
- Morphological Passive -기-TOPIK 3 — The passive suffix -기- attaches to transitive stems ending in ㄴ, ㅁ, ㅅ, or ㅊ — 안다 → 안기다 'be held', 쫓다 → 쫓기다 'be chased', 끊다 → 끊기다 'be cut off', 빼앗다 → 빼앗기다 'have something taken' — and often carries an adversative 'it happened to me' colouring.
- Transitive/Intransitive Verb Pairs (열다/열리다, 붙다/붙이다)TOPIK 3 — Korean rarely uses one verb for both 'X happens' and 'someone does X' — instead it has paired verbs, one intransitive and one transitive, built from the same 이/히/리/기/우 machinery as causatives and passives; this is the everyday, high-frequency face of the whole voice system.
- Which Verbs Passivize (and Which Do Not)TOPIK 4 — The suffix passive 이/히/리/기 is a closed, non-productive list — only a memorized set of native transitive verbs takes one, and the choice tracks the stem-final consonant; everything else passivizes through the escape hatches 되다 (for Sino-Korean nouns) and -아/어지다 (for native verbs).