Unit 1: Stage 7 Vocabulary 6

Interrogatives

The lo / ǔ-ro suffix after ǒ-di is a directive particle with many uses. In Unit 0, you learned one of its uses when we introduced yǒng-ǒ-ro ha-ji-ma-se-yo (“Don’t speak in English, please”). Here, suffixed to the question word ǒ-di (“where?”), the particle ro serves to express direction. In other words, when suffixed to a destination, it renders the direction “to” or “toward.” ǒ-di-ro ka-se-yo? is what you’ll usually hear from the taxi driver. However, in most cases, ǒ-di is used without the directive particle ro. That is, ǒ-di ka-se-yo? without ro sounds more natural in conversation, although the meaning is the same: “where are you going?”