Level 7 / Lesson 1:ย -ใด/๋๋ฐ
Hey everyone! Weโre going to start of Level 7 with a grammar structure you hear all the time in Korean: -ใด/๋๋ฐ. There are a few different ways in whichย -ใด/๋๋ฐ can be used, so letโs start with the first one!
1.ย ๊ทธ๋ฐ๋ฐ /ย ๊ทผ๋ฐ (Butโฆ)
One of the ways to useย -๋๋ฐ is to use the wordย ๊ทธ๋ฐ๋ฐ, which is often shortened to ๊ทผ๋ฐ. Thereโs not exactly a perfect English translation for this in English, but it usually meansย โbutโ orย โbut then.โ Usually, the first sentence before the one starting with ๊ทผ๋ฐ gives some type of background information followed by a contradictory statement. I think some sample sentences can clarify how exactly itโs used:
๋์ด ๋ง์ด ์ค๊ณ ์์ด์. ๊ทผ๋ฐ ๋ด์ผ์ ํ๊ต์ ์ ๊ฐ์ผ ๋ผ์? = Itโs snowing a lot. But then why do we have to go to school tomorrow?
Person 1: ์ด๋ฐ ์ ์ธ ๊ฐ ์ ๋ง ๋น์ธ์. = This kind of shirt is really expensive.
Person 2: ๊ทผ๋ฐ ์ ์ด๋ ๊ฒ ๋ง์ด ์์ด์? = But then why did you buy so many of them?
์ด์ ๋ฐค์ 8์๊ฐ ์ค์ด์. ๊ทผ๋ฐย ์ ์งย ์์ง ์กธ๋ ค์. = I slept for eight hours last night, but for some reason Iโm still tired.
-ใด/๋๋ฐ
Instead of usingย ๊ทผ๋ฐ, you can combine to sentences with -ใด/๋๋ฐ. Use the formula below:
Present tense: [verb / adjective stem] + ใด/๋๋ฐ
Attach -ใด๋ฐ to stems ending in a vowel
Attach -๋๋ฐ to stems ending in a consonant
Past tense: [verb / adjective stem] +ย ์/์/์๋๋ฐ
Future tense: [verb / adjective stem] + ใน/์ ๊ฑด๋ฐ
For instance, we can combine the two sentences above from the first example:
๋์ด ๋ง์ด ์ค๊ณ ์๋๋ฐ ๋ด์ผ์ ํ๊ต์ ์ ๊ฐ์ผ ๋ผ์? = Itโs snowing a lot, but then why do we have to go to school tomorrow?
2. Giving Background Information
Usingย -ใด/๋๋ฐ doesnโt always necessarily meanย โbut.โ A lot of times, it can judt be used for giving background information. Letโs look at a sentence from Talk to Me in Korean:
๋ด์ผ ์ผ์์ผ์ธ๋ฐ, ๋ญ ํ ๊ฑฐ์์? = Tomorrow is Sunday โ what are you going to do?
Here, youโre providing the info that tomorrow is Sunday and thus are asking this question โ itโs kind of like youโre giving context or giving a reason for asking.
The sentences Iโve provided so far have all been questions, but this structure can be used for regular statements as well. For instance:
๊ธฐ๋ง๊ณ ์ฌ๋ฅผ ์ํด ๊ณต๋ถํด์ผ ํ๋๋ฐ ์ ๊ฐ ์คํธ๋ ์ค ๋ง์์. = I have to study for final exams, so Iโm very stressed.
The background is that you have finals to study for, and the result of this is that youโre very stressed.
Notice howย -ใด/๋๋ฐ can sometimes be translated asย โsoโ rather thanย โbut.โ
ํ๊ต์ ์ผ์ฐ ๊ฐ๋๋ฐ ์๋ฌด๋ ์์์ด์. = I came to school early โ no one was there.
The background is that you went to school early, which led you to noticing that no one was there at that time.
3. Ending Sentences with -ใด/๋๋ฐ(์)
Sometimes, you can end a sentence withย -ใด/๋๋ฐ(์). This can also give a nuance of โbutโฆโ and is usually used to disagree with another person. Letโs see some example conversations:
Person 1: ๋์๊ด์ ๊ฑท์. (informal) = Letโs walk to the library.
Person 2: ๋ฐ์ ๋๋ฌด ๋์ด๋ฐโฆ (informal) = But it too hot out thoughโฆ
Person 1: ์น๋ฏผ์, ์์ ๋ฅผ ์ง๊ธ ํด์ผ ๋ผ. (informal) = Seungmin, you have to do your homework now.
Person 2: ์ ๋ ํผ๊ณคํ๋ฐ์. = But Iโm tired.
Person 1: ์ํผ๋ง์ผ์ ๊ฐ ์ฃผ์ธ์. = Please go to the supermarket for me.
Person 2: ์ซ์๋ฐ์. = But I donโt want to.
In these types of sentences, Person 2 is giving a reason for not doing something, or somehow contradicting what Person 1 says.
That was a long lesson! But you made it to the end! I hope this was helpful! This is a really common structure in Korean, so itโs good to know! Please ask any questions you may have!
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