"저는 앉습니다."
Translation:I sit.
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이/가 are subject markers. They mark the person/thing doing the action of the sentence.
은/는 are topic markers. They underline the main point of your sentence/and your sentences to come. A bit like a heading. You could translate them with 'as for the'.
Let me put those markers into an English sentence.
Tomorrow I go to school.
I am the one doing the action of going. So I should get 'ga' (subject marker) Tomorrow 'I-ga' go to school.
This could mean however three different things. It could be that only I go to school, nobody else does, or I don't know or care about whether the others go or not, it doesn't influence my decision. As for me, I go to school, are you going too?
In that case I will get the topic marker neun. I is still the subject, but the topic marker is more important right now. (However if I keep blabbing on about how well behaved and responsible I am, and and and.. I might not have to repeat the topic marker in the next sentences. Since it is still about ME.)
Now I also could put the emphasis else where in the sentence. I could say that I go TOMORROW to school and not today. Here tomorrow gets the topic marker.
Tomorrow - neun I-ga go to school.
Note that 'I' is still the subject of the action. We are talking about tomorrow, but it is 'I' who is going.
Third possibility. I want to underline the place. I am going to school, not to the cinema. Here the school gets the topic marker.
Tomorrow I-ga got to school-eun.
(Again 'I' remain the subject who is going, but the main fact is the place I'm going to.)
There are two ways to negate this (and any sentence):
-
저는 안 앉습니다 = I do not sit
-
저는 앉지 않습니다 = I do not sit
The first one is common in spoken Korean: just add 안 before your verb. The second one requires you to take the verb stem add it to ~지 않다 and conjugate accordingly:
앉다 ⟶ 앉 + ~지 않다 = 앉지 않다 → 앉지 않습니다
Note that there is another way to negate the sentence, but its more severe as it implies that the subject cannot do an action as opposed to not choosing to do the action:
- 저는 못 앉습니다 = I cannot sit