Level 8 / Lesson 8: -ㄹ/을수록
안녕! Hey everyone! Today we have a pretty easy and useful lesson. We’re going to learn how to say “as one thing happens, something else happens” using -ㄹ/을수록! Let’s start!
If you want to say something like “as you practice something, the better you get,” you can use the following formula:
[verb / adjective stem] + ㄹ/을수록 = As it [verb / adjective] / The more it [verb / adjective]
Attach -ㄹ수록 to stems ending in a vowel
Attach -을수록 to stems ending in a consonant
Let’s look at one example:
열심히 할수록 성적이 높아요. = As you work hard, you’re grades get higher. / The harder you work, the higher your grades get.
Notice how the second clause 성적이 높아요 just means “the grades are high.” Thus, the sentence could literally be translated as “as you work hard, you’re grades are high.” But what the sentence is actually trying to communicate is that the act of working hard has an effect on your grades – there’s a direct relationship in other words. Therefore, the harder you work, the higher your grades become.
If you wish, you could also add 더 (more) to emphasize that your grades will get higher than they were previously. You may also add -아/어지다, which would suggest an increase in whatever adjective you have, as well:
열심히 할수록 성적이 더 높아져요. = The harder you work, the higher your grades will get. (this essentially means the same thing as the previous version of the sentence.)
Let’s see some more sentences:
(from howtostudykorean.com) 가방에 물건을 넣을수록 무거워져요. = As you put more items into the bag, the heavier it gets.
연습할수록 나아져요. = As you practice, you improve.
아이가 커질수록 똑똑해요. = As the child grows, he gets smarter. / The bigger the child gets, the smarter he becomes.
신발의 값이 높을수록 사는 사람들의 수가 줄어요. = As the price of the shoes gets higher, the number of people who buy them decreases. / The higher the price of the shoes, the less people buy them.
사람들의 수 = the number of people
줄다 = to decrease, to drop
수학 더 문제를 풀을수록 쉬워요. = The more math problems you solve, the easier it gets. / As you solve more math problems, the easier the math becomes.
한국어 공부할수록 유청해져요. = The more you study Korean, the more fluent you become. / As you study Korean, you’ll become fluent.
돈을 안 쓸수록 더 절약해요. = The more you don’t spend your money, the more money you save. / As you don’t spend money, you save more.
Notice how this structure can be used for negative sentences as well!
So all the above examples describe some sort of cause and effect relationship – as you put more stuff in the bag, the heavier the bag becomes. As you practice, you improve. But not all of the sentences with -ㄹ/을수록 has to describe this kind of relationship. Let’s look at this sentence (inspired by howtostudykorean.com’s):
가게에 일찍 갈수록 사람이 많지 않아요. = The earlier you go to the store, the less crowded it will be. / The earlier you go to the store, the less people there will be. / The earlier you go to the store, there won’t be many people.
This differs from one of the above sentences because the act of going to the store earlier does not make the store less crowded – the store just happens to be less crowded during the earlier hours that it’s open. The example with the bag, however, suggests that the act of putting more stuff into the bag makes it heavier. In this one, however, your act of arriving earlier does not actively cause a change in the amount of people it the store – that’s just the way it is earlier on, if that makes sense. That said, for the most part I think most sentences using this pattern would suggest a cause and effect relationship. But I just wanted to make that distinction!
I think that’s pretty much it for this lesson! 질문을 물어볼수록 한국어 더 이해해요! The more questions you ask, the more you’ll understand Korean, so ask away!
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