S.Y.

-기(를) 바라다 is the grammatical structure that means “I hope/I wish” and in Korean, the verb 바라다 takes an object (a noun or -기, the nominalized form of verbs) whereas in English one wishes 'for' or hopes 'for' something.

Verb stem + -기(를) 바라다

Ex)
오다 (oda – to come)
▷ 오(다) + 기를 바라다 = 오기를 바라다
▷ ▷ 오길 바래. = I hope you'll come.

Ex)
낫다 (natda – to get better (from an illness))
▷ 낫(다) + 기를 바라다 = 낫기를 바라다
▷ ▷ 빨리 낫길 바래요. = I hope you'll get better soon.

1. 저도 그러기를 바래요. [그렇다] (jeo-do geureogil baraeyo)
– I hope so, too.

2. 그런 일이 없기를 바래요. [없다] (geureon il-i eopgi-reul baraeyo)
– I hope something like that wouldn't happen.

3. 행복하길 바래. [행복하다] (haengbokhagil barae)
– I wish you happiness.

4. 잊지 않길 바랄게. [잊다] (itji ankil baralge)
– I hope you won't forget it.

5. 내가 어떻게 해 주길 바래? [하다] (nae-ga eotteotke hae jugil barae?)
– What do you wish for me to do?

note

1. -기를 is often contracted to -길.

2. -기를 바라다 is often combined with the structure -ㄹ게(요).
Ex) -기를 바랄게

To hope: 바라다

Let’s start off with the less common (and more difficult) of the two. The word “바라다” in Korean means “to hope,” and can be used after a sentence (that one is hoping for) in the ~는 것 form. For example:

저는 저의 여자 친구가 저를 좋아하는 것을 원해요 = I want my girlfriend to like me
저는 저의 여자 친구가 저를 좋아하는 것을 바라요 = I hope my girlfriend likes me

Here’s a confusing one: For some reason, 바라다 sort of acts as an irregular. I’m not sure how this evolved, but Korean people usually pronounce “바라 + 아” (which would happen if you are conjugating 바라다 into the high respect informal and low respect informal honorific conjugations) as “바래.” Even though I think 바라요 would originally/historically be correct, people these days often wright “바래” or “바래요” instead of “바라” and “바라요.” For example:

저는 저의 여자 친구가 저를 좋아하는 것을 바래요 = I hope my girlfriend likes me

Another confusing thing is that 바라다 is often used with ~기(를) to make the preceding sentence into a noun instead of ~는 것. For example:

저는 저의 여자 친구가 저를 좋아하기를 바래요 = I hope my girlfriend likes me
저는 그 일을 잘 하기를 바래요 = I hope I do that job well
숙제가 많지 않기를 바래요 = I hope there isn’t a lot of homework

If you want to say that you hope something happened in the past, keep 바라다 conjugated in the present tense, but conjugate the verb/adjective before ~기를 into the past tense (as you would when adding ~기 때문에), and add ~기를. For example:

저는 그 일을 잘 했기를 바래요 = I hope I did that job well
우리는 실수를 안 했기를 바래요 = I hope we didn’t make a mistake

More examples from both tenses:
지금 만날 여자가 예쁘기를 바래 = I hope the girl I am meeting now is pretty
아빠가 곧 오기를 바래요 = I hope dad comes home soon
그가 나에게 돈을 많이 주기를 바래 = I hope he gives me a lot of money

You can actually use this same grammatical form to say “please…” in Korean. I will show you how to do that in the next section.

Please… ~해주기 바랍니다

You learned in Lesson 40 that you can say “Please…” by adding ~아/어 주세요 to the end of a verb or adjective. For example:

그 일을 해 주세요 = Please do that for me
치킨을 냉장고에서 꺼내 주세요 = Please take the chicken out of the fridge for me

You can actually use the ~기 바라다 grammatical form to say “Please…” as well. When you do this, the formal ending ~ㅂ니다 is usually added to 바라다 to make “바랍니다.” For example:

그 일을 하기 바랍니다 = Please do that
치킨을 냉장고에서 꺼내기를 바랍니다 = Please take the chicken out of the fridge for me

Notice that these directly translate to “I hope that you do that” and “I hope that you take the chicken out of the fridge,” which could technically mean “Please do that” and “Please take the chicken out of the fridge.”

When adding just ~기 바랍니다 to sentences to mean “please,” to Korean people, it sounds as though the person who is speaking has authority. For example, if a boss was telling his workers to get their work done, he would say “그 일을 하기 바랍니다.” Implied in this meaning is that the work technically should/ought to be done, and that the boss is ordering them to do it.

You can remove that “authoritative” feel by adding 아/어 주다 after the verb that you are hoping is done. For example:

그 일을 해 주기 바랍니다
치킨을 냉장고에서 꺼내 주기 바랍니다

To make those sentences more formal, the honorific “시” is often added to 주다:

그 일을 해 주시기 바랍니다 = Please do that/I hope that you do that
치킨을 냉장고에서 건네 주시기 바랍니다 = Please take the chicken out of the fridge/I hope that you take the chicken out of the fridge

Asking somebody to do something by using this form is very formal, and is most often heard in overhead announcements made to large crowds of people instructing them to do something. For example, if you take the subway in Seoul, the announcement might say:

지금은 서울 역. 서울역입니다. 공항철도나 KTX를 타시고 싶은 승객은 이 역에서 갈아타시기 바랍니다 = This is Seoul Station. Riders wanting to take the Airport Railroad or the KTX, please transfer at this station.

If you need to tell somebody what to do, and you were to climb the figurative ladder of politeness, it would look something like this:

지금 나가
지금 나가라
지금 나가세요
지금 나가기 바랍니다
지금 나가 주기 바랍니다
지금 나가십시오
지금 나가 주시기 바랍니다

Heh. In English, all mean “Please go now.”

There is another way that you can say “I hope” in Korean, which we will talk about next.