매일 널 생각해요

The line, explained

Three words, and one of them does all the emotional work. 매일 널 생각해요 means 'every day, I think of you', but what makes it land is the little 요 at the end. That syllable tells you the singer is being polite — holding back, keeping a respectful distance from the very person they cannot stop thinking about. Once you can hear -아/어요, you can hear how close two people are in any Korean line.

매일 is 'every day'. It is built from 매 (every) and 일 (day), and like most time words in Korean it sits at the very front of the sentence. You will meet its cousins quickly: 매주 (every week), 매년 (every year). Then comes 널, which is simply 너 (you, casual) plus 를, the object marker, squashed into one syllable. Lyrics love these contractions because they save a beat.

생각해요 is the verb. The dictionary form is 생각하다, to think, and in Korean the verb always comes last. To make it polite, you take the stem 생각하 and add the ending. Normally the rule is: -아요 after a stem whose last vowel is ㅏ or ㅗ, -어요 after everything else. 하다 is the special case every learner memorises first: 하 + 여요 contracts to 해요. So 생각하다 becomes 생각해요.

The -아/어요 ending is the polite present tense, and it is the single most useful ending in Korean. 가다 (to go) becomes 가요. 먹다 (to eat) becomes 먹어요. 기다리다 (to wait) becomes 기다려요. It works for statements, and with a rising tone it works for questions too: 생각해요? means 'do you think of me?'. One ending, half of everyday conversation.

Now drop the 요. 매일 널 생각해 is the same sentence in casual speech — what you would say to a close friend or a lover. That is why the polite version feels so tender in a love song: the singer still has not earned the right to drop the 요. In a drama, the moment a character finally switches from 생각해요 to 생각해 is the moment the relationship changes.