한글 1

So I was about to make an entry about food/drink first, but then I realized... Wow, how the hell is that going to help anything. Let's begin with easy words that are actually useful!!

1. 나 (I, informal)
2. 너 (you, informal)
3. 우리 (we)

OK, that's it for today's pronouns. Yeah, really. Why, you ask? Because we need to move on to nouns, that's why!!

1. 밥 (rice, meal)
2. 콜라 (cola=Coke, Pepsi)
3. 김치 (kimchi)

Those are enough for nouns... What next then... VERBS! Please keep in mind that the verbs are in dictionary form.

1. 먹다 (to eat)
2. 마시다 (to drink)
3. 만들다 (to make)
4. 하다 (to do)

So now you have the basic elements to make a sentence. However, the Korean sentence structure is ALMOST the complete opposite of English. Check this out:
SUBJECT/TOPIC -- OBJECT -- VERB
But that's not all!! Koreans use particles to indicate exactly what the subject and object of the sentence are! I'm using a lot of exclamation points because this is very important!!!
!!!

Grammar

1. Subject
The subject of the sentence can take on two different particles: 는/은 or 이/가.
는/은: The best explanation I've heard for this is that it roughly means "as for ..." It's usually used when introducing a new subject or contrasting two different things. For example: I eat vegetables, but AS FOR SEAFOOD, I don't eat it.
이/가: Your run of the mill subject marker. Use this when you're not contrasting stuff or if the subject is within a clause. For Example: The cheese that Anna(가) likes is not in Korea.
Do you remember this from good ol' Deutsch? Die Kase (sorry no umlauts, too lazy) dass Anna mag, ist nicht in Korea.
Anywho.

2. Object
The object simply takes 을/를. If you're wondering why there're always two, it's because it depends on whether the preceding word ends in a vowel or a noun. We'll practice that more later.

3. Conjugating the verb
For the sake of simplicity, we're going to just use the 요-form for a while. It's not the highest form of politeness, but you won't get your ass kicked when you use it on the street.
This takes a while to explain so please have patience.

The conjugation depends on what vowel sound is in the verb, and whether or not it ends in a consonant. All verbs end in either 다 or 하다. 하다 is the easiest one, so let's start there.
하다 -> 해요
Now that I think about, I'm not sure why it conjugates that way, but just remember that because then it's easy as hell to conjugate any other verb that ends in 하다. For example: 사랑하다 (to love). That becomes 사랑해요 (I love you).

Verbs that end in 다 are a different story. This is becoming quite the heavy entry, so I'll continue the 다-verb in the next entry. For now, I leave these sentences for you to puzzle over:

내가 밥을 먹어요. (I eat rice/a meal)
너는 콜라를 마셔요. (You drink Coke.)<- This is not a command form.
우리는 밥을 만들어요. (We make food)
우리는 게임을 해요 (We play games)