Archive for 'Grammar'
The Future Tense Posted by Ginny on Feb 28, 2010
We’ll be taking about the future tense today. Let’s look at the first sentence: 공부할 겁니다 = I will study. The construction ~을/를 겁니다 is what makes this future tense. 지금 먹을 겁니다 = I will eat now. This is the same construction as before, but slightly different. Here 을 겁니다 was used. When the…
도 Posted by Ginny on Feb 22, 2010
There are many subtles uses of 도, which we will explore in today’s lesson. One of the uses of 도 is to use it to mean “also” or “too” 한국어도 공부했어요 (한국어 = Korean language. 도 = also. 공부했어요 = past tense of 공부하다 = to study) In English, this would mean, “I also studied Korean”. 도…
“Only” Posted by Ginny on Feb 16, 2010
To start this lesson off, let’s take a look some sentences: (1) 술을 마셨어요. (술 = alcohol. 을 = object marking particle. 마셨어요 = past tense of 마시다 = to drink) (2) 술만 마쎴어요. (술 = alcohol. 만 = only. 마쎴어요 = drank) The first sentence can be interpreted as, “[I] drank alcohol” while the…
Cannot/Won’t Posted by Ginny on Feb 10, 2010
For today’s post we’re going to look at the construction ~지 못하다 and ~지 않다. ~지 못하다 is used when you want to say you cannot do something, while ~지 않다 is used when you won’t do something. Let’s take a look at some sample sentences: 오늘 숙제를 못 해요. (오늘 = yesterday. 숙제 = homework. 를 = object…
ㅅ Ending Words in the Past Tense Posted by Ginny on Feb 4, 2010
In the last post, we looked at ㅅ ending words in the present tense. Today we’ll look at ㅅ ending words in the past tense. The verb 짓다 (to build) in the past tense of the standard polite will be 지었어요. Drop the 다 and ㅅ of 짓다 and add 었어요 to form the past…
ㅅ Ending Words Posted by Ginny on Feb 1, 2010
Some ㅅ ending verbs like 짓다 (to build) are a part of a special class of verbs that end in ㅅ. In the standard polite present tense form, 짓다 will be conjugated as 지어요. The 다 from 짓다 is dropped and so is the ㅅ from 짓. Then 어요 is added. Let’s try conjugating the…
To/From in Korean Posted by Ginny on Jan 28, 2010
Let’s take a look at a sentence like this: 친구한테 전화했어요? (친구 = friend. 한테 = to. 전화했어요 = past tense of 전화하다, or “to make a phone call”). In English, this would mean, “Did you call your friend?” The part that I want to focus on today is 한테. Here, 한테 means “to” but not…