seonsaengnimi bangapge insahae jusyeosseoyo.

subject particle

Breakdown of seonsaengnimi bangapge insahae jusyeosseoyo.

• 선생님: teacher
• 반갑게: gladly
• 인사해 주다: to greet

Questions & Answers about seonsaengnimi bangapge insahae jusyeosseoyo.

What is the basic structure of 선생님이 반갑게 인사해 주셨어요?

A useful breakdown is:

• 선생님이 = the teacher
  • subject marker 이
• 반갑게 = warmly / in a glad way / as if happy to see someone
• 인사해 = greet / say hello
• 주셨어요 = did for someone
  • honorific + past polite ending

So the sentence is built like:

The teacher + warmly + greeted + for me/us

That last part, -아/어 주다, often adds the feeling that the action was done for the benefit of someone, often the speaker.

Why does 선생님 take 이 here?

이/가 marks the subject of the sentence.

So 선생님이 means the teacher is the person who performed the action.

In this sentence, the teacher is the one who greeted someone, so 이 is natural.

A learner might compare it to 선생님은:

• 선생님이 focuses more on who did it
• 선생님은 would sound more like as for the teacher...

Both can be possible in different contexts, but 이 is a very normal choice when simply stating what happened.