Upper-Intermediate / Lesson 22: -김에
안녕하세요! Hey everyone! Welcome to this lesson, which is all about -김에! This is a really useful structure to use – you can use it to say, “while you’re at it, can you get some milk?” or “since you’re here, why don’t you stay for dinner?” Let’s start!
-김에 is attached to verbs to mean “while I was [verb]-ing” or “while I’m [verb]-ing.” (The subject doesn’t always have to be “I” btw!) -김에 isn’t really just used to say “while I’m doing something, I also do something else.” It’s used to say “while I’m at something, I’ll do something else since it’s convenient for me to do so.” Before we look at some examples to illustrate this, let’s see some formulas!
{Present Tense} [verb stem] + 는 김에
{Past Tense} [verb stem] + ㄴ/ 김에
가게에 가는 김에 우유 더 사 줄래요? = While you’re at the store, can you buy more milk? / Since you’re going to the store, can you get some more milk while you’re there?
Here, you’re not just talking about doing two actions at the same time as you would with -(으)면서, which also translates to “while.” These two actions, going to the store and buying milk, are closely related because buying milk is convenient when one is already at the store. Think of it in English when we say “while you’re at it, why don’t you buy some more milk?” Let’s see some more examples!
(from Naver Dictionary) 오신 김에 저녁이나 같이 하시죠. = While you’re here, why don’t you have dinner with us?
Your guest has come all the way from home to visit you, so why don’t they stay for dinner while they’re here?
원피스를 사러 나간 김에 구두도 샀어요. = While I went out to buy a dress, I bought shoes too. / While I was out shopping for a dress, I bought shoes too.
Maybe you were at the mall shopping for a dress and decided you should buy a pair of shoes to go with it while you’re at it.
Notice how I attached -ㄴ 김에 here to describe something you did in the past!
대구에 지나간 김에 할머니를 방문했어요. = While I was passing through Daegu, I visited my grandmother.
Maybe your grandmother lives in Daegu, a place you might not be in often, so you decided to take the opportunity while you were there to go visit her.
도서관에 있는 김에 생물학 과제를 시작할 거예요. = While I’m at the library, I’ll start my biology project.
아마존에서 교과서를 찾는 김에 새 펜 찾아요. = I’m searching for new pens while I’m looking for a textbook on Amazon.
That’s about it for this lesson! Hope it was helpful! See you in the next lesson! 다음 또 봐요!
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