전원 이상 없습니다! 언제 출발합니까?

The line, explained

Turn on any Korean war film or barracks comedy and you will hear a sound unlike anything in K-pop: short, loud sentences ending in -습니다 and -습니까, fired off like rifle shots. This is 합쇼체, the most formal speech level in modern Korean. Today's line is a squad leader reporting to an officer before a mission: everyone is here, nothing is wrong, and when do we go? Word for word, it is also the register of newsreaders, CEOs and airline announcements.

전원 is a Sino-Korean word, 全員, "all members", the whole unit or team. 이상 means "something abnormal, a problem". 이상 없습니다, "there is nothing wrong", is the standard military report, said with the chin up. 없습니다 is 없다, "to not exist, to not have", plus -습니다. Because 없 ends in a consonant, it takes -습니다. In speech the ㅂ before ㄴ turns into ㅁ, so you hear eop-seum-ni-da, and the ㅅ in the 없 cluster stays silent.

언제 is "when". 출발합니까 is 출발하다, "to depart, to set off", in the formal question form. After a vowel stem like 출발하, the endings shrink to -ㅂ니다 and -ㅂ니까, written as a ㅂ tucked under the last syllable: 합니다, 합니까. Again, ㅂ before ㄴ sounds like ㅁ: ham-ni-kka. The question barely rises; in a military setting it stays crisp. There is no "we" in the sentence, because everyone already knows who is departing.

Where else will you hear it? Newsreaders open with 안녕하십니까, a formal "good evening". Presenters close a pitch with 감사합니다. Shop staff greet you with 어서 오십시오. A job candidate answers every interview question in -습니다. It sounds respectful but distant, which is why friends never use it with each other unless they are joking. In fact, snapping 알겠습니다! at a friend in a stiff voice is a common gag: you are pretending to be a private taking orders.

Swap the verb and keep the report: 언제 이동합니까? (when do we move?), 공격합니까? (attack?), 복귀합니까? (return to base?), 철수합니까? (pull out?). All of them are 하다 verbs, so all take -합니까. Try a few consonant stems on your own too: 먹다 becomes 먹습니까, "do you eat?", and 있다 becomes 있습니다, "there is". Once the rhythm is in your ear, you will hear it in every press conference and every scene where a junior speaks to a senior.