# 주세요



## Maribii14

I have a question about 주세요. I use an app called memrise for practice on vocabulary and came across this sentence: 기사님, 호텔로가주세요 which they said meant 'take me to the hotel driver,' however isn't that incorrect? Doesn't 주세요 mean 'give me please'? I read that you can't use that when talking about location, but I'm not sure. If anyone can help me out that would be awesome!


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## Flooooooooor

Hi Maribii14,

I am also learning Korean and will certainly defer to any native speakers who correct/elaborate on what I write, but hopefully I can help a bit in giving the basic answer.

You are right that the verb *주다* (which is where *주세요 *comes from) means "give". The first examples people tend to learn using *주다* mean just that -- giving an object physically to someone else.

물 좀* 주세요* -- "Please give me some water".​
But *주다* has a neat extended meaning in Korean where, when it comes after a verb in 아/어 form, adds a sense of that verb being done _for the benefit of someone else_ or _as a favor to someone else_. In the below sentences, that person benefitting is you:

기사님, 호텔로 가 *주세요*. -- "Driver, please go to the hotel as an act that is done for my benefit" --> "Please take me to the hotel."​이 문장을 설명해 *주세요*. -- "Please explain this sentence as an act that is done for my benefit" --> "Please explain this sentence [for me]."​
Try looking for "아/어 주다" or "-아/어/여 주세요" in your favorite search engine for detailed explanations and example sentences -- fortunately there are a lot of good websites that can help make it clearer to an English native speaker.


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## Taehun

I'm a korean and Flooooooooor explained rightly  (it seems that she/he knows korean grammar better than me.)

I'd like to give one application case. If you know already '드리다', which is the honorific(formal) form of '주다', you can think of the natural answers to the example questions above.

A : 기사님, 호텔로 가 주세요.  (asked formaly by adding '주세요') 
B : 네, 호텔로 가 드리겠습니다(드릴게요).  (answered formaly by substituting '주다' with '드리다' ) 

It should be noticed, that you can hardly make a formal answer by using '주다' in this case. 

Of course you can answer rightly with '주세요'

Ex) 네, 호텔로 가 줄게요.

 but then the answer loses its formal sense or keeps it very slightly because of the einding "-요". So when someone asked you formally, you better not answer with '주세요' 

We do it better with '드리다'. 

A : 이 문장을 설명해 주세요
B : 네, 이 문장을 설명해 드리겠습니다(드릴게요).  

*Another caution : you can't use '드리다' in asking. 

In short
 when you ask formally, you better add '주세요'
 when you answer formally, you better change '주세요 ' to '드릴게요' or '드리겠습니다' 

Writing this thread, I just realised how tricky the language is. 

Good luck for you all !


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## lkjhg811

Maribii14 said:


> I have a question about 주세요. I use an app called memrise for practice on vocabulary and came across this sentence: 기사님, 호텔로가주세요 which they said meant 'take me to the hotel driver,' however isn't that incorrect? Doesn't 주세요 mean 'give me please'? I read that you can't use that when talking about location, but I'm not sure. If anyone can help me out that would be awesome!


Hi, Maribii14.
I'm a native Korean speaker.
In the word "주세요", "세요" always means approximately "please" but "주" has more than one meaning depending on the context.


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## Maribii14

Thanks everyone for the input! I think I get it now! <3


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