Now its time to learn how to make an actual sentence using the word 'to be.' English speakers often don't realize how difficult this word is in English. Look at the following examples:
I am a man
He is a man
They are men
I was a man
They were men
In each of those sentences, the word 'to be' is represented by a different word (is/am/are/was/were) depending on the subject and tense of the sentence. Luckily, in Korean, the same word is used to represent is, am, are, was and were. This word is 이다
이다 should not be thought of as a verb or an adjective in Korean, as in most cases it acts differently. I will teach you how 이다 differs from verbs and adjectives as it becomes important (in future lessons).
Sometimes however, 이다 is somewhat similar to adjectives. Remember that sentences ending with adjectives do not have objects in them. Whenever a sentence is predicated by an adjective, there will be no object in the sentence. Only sentences with verbs have objects. Let's look at some examples:
I eat hamburgers (eat is a verb, the object is a hamburger)
I meet my friend (meet is a verb, the object is my friend)
I study Korean (study is a verb, the object is Korean)
I listen to music (listen is a verb, the object is music)
All of those sentences (can) have objects because the verb is the predicate of the sentence. However, in sentences that are predicated by adjectives:
I am pretty
I am beautiful
I am hungry
I am smart
This means that we can never use the particle ~을/를 in a sentence predicated by an adjective (because ~을/를 denotes that there is an object). The object particle is also not used when using the word "이다." The basic structure for a sentence predicated by "이다" is:
[noun은/는] [another noun] [이다]
For example:
I는 man이다 = I am a man
Now substitute the words for "man" and "I:"
나 = I
남자 = man
나는 + 남자 + 이다
이다 gets attached directly to the noun. So, the above construction looks like:
나는 남자이다 = I am a man
It is very important that you remember that ~를/을 is not attached to words in sentences with "이다." The following would be very incorrect:
나는 남자를 이다.
이다 is the only word that acts like this, and is one of the reasons why you should treat it differently than other verbs or adjectives.
The focus of this lesson (and Lessons 2 and 3) is to introduce you to simple Korean sentence structure. Until you reach Lesson 5 and Lesson 6 you will not be exposed to the conjugations and honorifics of Korean verbs, adjectives and 이다.
In reality, these words are never (or very very rarely) used without these conjugations and honorifics. Therefore, while I stress the importance of understanding the structure of the sentences presented in this Lessons 1, 2, 3 and 4 do not use the sentences in any form of communication with Korean people, as they will most likely not be understood. In order to completely understand what is presented in Lessons 5 and 6 (and for the rest of your Korean studies), it is essential that you understand what is presented in these first four lessons – even though they may be seen as "technically incorrect."
For all of the "technically incorrect" (un-conjugated) sentences presented in Lesson 1 – 4 I will provide a correct (conjugated) version of the same sentence in parenthesis below the un-conjugated version (one formal and one informal conjugation). Note one more time that you will not understand these conjugations until Lessons 5 and 6(for verbs and adjectives) and Lesson 9 (for 이다).
Other examples of 이다 in use:
나는 여자이다 = I am a woman
(나는 여자야 / 저는 여자예요)
나는 선생님이다 = I am a teacher
(나는 선생님이야 / 저는 선생님이에요)
나는 사람이다 = I am a person
(나는 사람이야 / 저는 사람이에요)
나는 ______이다 = I am a _______
(나는 _______ 이야 / 저는 _____이에요)
You can substitute any noun into the blank space to make these sentences.
