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Sometimes, you forget the name of someone, something, or some place. Sometimes you don’t remember what someone else has said or on what date something happened. In those situations, you can say things like “What was it?”, “What was it again?”, “What was I going to say?”, “Where were we going to meet tonight?”, etc. In this lesson, let’s take a look at how to say those phrases in Korean.

Key structures
1. -더라? [-deo-ra?] (Only possible with casual language and monologue)
2. -았/(이)었/였지? [-i-eot/-yeot-ji?] (Only possible with casual language and monologue)
3. -았/(이)었/였죠? [-i-eot/-yeot-jyo?] (Only possible with formal language)

Usage of “-더라?” (Only possible with casual language and monologue)
You can add -더라? at the end of the verb stem of an action verb to say “I forgot. What was it that …”. But when you want to use -더라? with a noun, you need to change the noun into the verb form by adding -이다.
→ Noun + -이다 (to be) + -더라?

But you can drop -이 when the noun ends with a vowel, therefore if a noun ends with a vowel (such as 나무, 여자, 남자, 누구, etc), you can simply add -더라? at the end.

Examples
이거 누구 책이에요? [i-geo nu-gu chae-gi-e-yo?] = Whose book is this? / This is whose book?
→ 이거 누구 책이더라? [i-geo nu-gu chae-gi-deo-ra?]
= Whose book was this again? I forgot, whose book is this?

효진 씨 생일이 언제예요? [hyo-jin ssi saeng-i-ri eon-je-ye-yo?] = When is Hyojin’s birthday?
효진 씨 생일이 언제더라? [hyo-jin ssi saeng-i-ri eon-je-deo-ra?]
= When was Hyojin’s birthday again? / When is Hyojin’s birthday? I forgot.

이거 어떻게 해요? [i-geo eo-tteo-ke hae-yo?] = How do you do this?
이거 어떻게 하더라? [i-geo eo-tteo-ke ha-deo-ra?]
= How do you do this? Can you tell me again?

Usage of “-았/(이)었/였지?” (Only possible with casual language and monologue)
-였지? basically has the same usage and construction as -더라?. So you can change the endings of all the sentences above to -였지.

이거 누구 책이더라? [i-geo nu-gu chae-gi-deo-ra?]
→ 이거 누구 책이었지? [i-geo nu-gu chae-gi-eot-ji?]

효진 씨 생일이 언제더라? [hyo-jin ssi saeng-i-ri eon-je-deo-ra?]
→ 효진 씨 생일이 언제였지? [hyo-jin ssi saeng-i-ri eon-je-yeot-ji?]

이거 어떻게 하더라? [i-geo eo-tteo-ke ha-deo-ra?]
→ 이거 어떻게 했지? [i-geo eo-tteo-ke haet-ji?]

The meanings are the same, but the latter (using -이었/였지?) has a slightly stronger nuance toward the past tense.

Usage of “-았/(이)었/였죠?” (Only possible with formal language)
-이었/였죠? is basically the same as -이었/였지? but is in the 존댓말 form. -이었/였죠? is originally just -이었/였지 + 요? but when pronounced fast and naturally, it becomes -죠 at the end. Therefore you can use all the example sentences above with -죠? or -지요? at the end to make the sentences more polite and formal.

Usage with -다고 and -라고
Since you can use -더라?, -이었/였지? and -이었/였죠? when checking with someone what something is called, when something is scheduled, etc, you can often hear people say these together with -다고 or -라고. This is because -다고 and -라고 are expressed in order to ‘quote’ someone.

이거 뭐였죠?
[i-geo mwo-yeot-jyo?]
= What was this again? / What is this? I forgot.

이거 뭐라고 했죠?
[i-geo mwo-ra-go haet-jyo?]
= What did you say this was?

More Sample Sentences
1. 석진 씨가 언제 온다고 했죠?
[seok-jin ssi-ga eon-je on-da-go haet-jyo?]
= When did you say Seokjin was going to come?

2. 석진 씨가 한국에 언제 왔죠?
[seok-jin ssi-ga han-gu-ge eon-je wat-jyo?]
= When did Seokjin come to Korea? I forgot.

3. 석진 씨가 한국에 언제 오더라?
[seok-jin ssi-ga han-gu-ge eon-je o-deo-ra?]
= When is Seokjin coming to Korea? I forgot.

4. 이거 누구 거더라?
[i-geo nu-gu geo-deo-ra?]
= Whose is this? I forgot.

5. 이거 누구 거라고 했더라?
[i-geo nu-gu geo-ra-go haet-deo-ra?]
= You said this was whose?

6. 그 사람 이름이 뭐더라?
[geu sa-ram i-reu-mi mwo-deo-ra?]
= What was his name again?
= 그 사람 이름이 뭐였더라?

7. 내일 몇 시에 올 거라고 했죠?
[nae-il myeot si-e ol geo-ra-go haet-jyo?]
= What time did you say you were going to come tomorrow?

8. 이게 한국어로 뭐였죠?
[i-ge han-gu-geo-ro mwo-yeot-jyo?]
= What was this in Korean again?