The word 있다 has many meanings. To a beginner of Korea, we can simplify and generalise these meanings into two forms or usages:
있다 to have
있다 to be at a location
In English, "to have" is a verb that can act on an object. This usage of 있다 in Korean is an adjective. This is hard for a learner to wrap their head around. At this point, this is important to you for one reason. You learned that sentences with adjectives cannot act on an object. Thus, you cannot have a word with the particle ~를/을 attached to it if the predicating word in a sentence is an adjective. If this weren't the case, we could do the following:
나는 펜을 있다 I have a pen
However, the sentence above is incorrect. 있다 is an adjective and cannot act on an object like this. Therefore, the usage of 을 on 펜 is incorrect. To get around this, we can attach 이/가 to the object instead of 를/을 in sentences with 있다. This is one usage of the particle 이/가 — to indicate the thing that a person "has" in sentences with 있다.
Examples :
나는 차가 있다 I have a car
나는 잡지가 있다 I have a magazine
나는 가방이 있다 I have a bag
Again, note that 를/을 is not used to indicate the object that a person "has". Instead, 이/가 are used.
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Korean Language for Beginners
De TodoThis book contains the alphabet, vocabulary and grammar for Korean language. The explanation is in English and do take note that the example for Korean word or sentences does not contain romanisation, only in Hangul. Feel free to ask me if you have...
