KOREAN LANGUAGE TUTORIAL

LESSON 68

Korean Lesson: Lessons 68

Do you think that…: ~ㄹ/을까(요)
You learned in earlier lessons how to make quoted sentences. You also learned that you can also end quoted sentences with the word “생각하다” (to think) to express that you are thinking about something. For example:
저는 그 여자가 예쁘다고 생각해요 = I think that girl is pretty
저는 우리 친구가 늦게 올 거라고 생각해요 = I think our friend will come late
You can use these same forms in question sentences to ask people what they think, for example:
그 여자가 예쁘다고 생각해요? = Do you think that girl is pretty?
그 친구가 늦게 올 거라고 생각해요? = Do you think that our friend will come late?
What’s interesting about the grammatical form “~ㄹ/을까(요)” is that you can attach it to the end of verb/adjectives to have the same meaning as the two sentences above. That is, by attaching ~ㄹ/을까(요) to a verb/adjective, you can create the meaning of “Do you think that…” For example:
그 여자가 예쁠까? = Do you think that girl will be pretty?
However, I have to mention that I feel that there is a very subtle difference between:
그 여자가 예쁘다고 생각해요? = Do you think that girl is pretty?
And
그 여자가 예쁠까? = Do you think that girl will be pretty?
When you say the first sentence, the feeling is that the girl is there, and you can see what she looks like. However, in the second sentence, the feeling is that the person you are asking the question to has never met the girl – and the person asking is wondering if he thinks that the girl will be pretty when they meet.
It’s hard to explain, but the best way to explain it is to say that ~ㄹ/을까(요) is used when asking somebody whether or not something will happen in the future, or whether or not something did happen in the past – but is not when asking somebody about their opinion of the current situation. Therefore, when you say this:
그 여자가 예쁠까? = Do you think that girl will be pretty?
You are not asking about whether or not the girl is pretty. Rather, you are asking if she will be pretty whenever that time comes (when you meet her, or see her for the first time, or whatever).
However, in the other example from above:
그 친구가 늦게 올 거라고 생각해요? = Do you think that our friend will come late?
… this sentence is in the future, and the speaker is asking the listener what he thinks will happen in the future. Therefore, these two would have the same meaning:
그 친구가 늦게 올 거라고 생각해요? = Do you think that our friend will come late?
그 친구가 늦게 올까요? = Do you think that our friend will come late?
You can ask about past situations by conjugating the verb/adjective into the past before attaching ~을까요:
그 친구가 늦게 왔을까요? = Do you think our friend came late?
아빠가 돈을 냈을까요? = Do you think dad paid?
그 학생이 숙제를 벌써 다 했을까요? = Do you think the student finished all his homework already?
Believe it or not, there are still more meanings you can create by adding ~ㄹ/을까(요) to sentences. Lets look at one more in this lesson before we move on to the next lesson.
I am thinking of…/I was expecting: ~ㄹ/을까 하다
In all previous usages, ~ㄹ/을까(요) was added to the end of sentences. In this grammatical form, though it doesn’t come directly at the end of a sentence, you should think of “~ㄹ/을까 하다” as one grammatical unit, and not broken down into two separate parts.
By attaching “~ㄹ/을까 하다” to the ends of sentences, you can create the meaning of “I am thinking of…” For example:
그 영화를 볼까 해요 = I am thinking about going to that movie
그 여자와 함께 밥을 먹을까 해요 = I am thinking about asking that girl to go eat dinner together with me
~ㄹ/을까 하다 is often connected to ~아/어서 (because) to create the meaning “I was thinking of… so…”
그 영화를 볼까 해서 영화관에 갔어요 = I was thinking of watching that movie, so I went to the theatre
그 여자와 함께 밥을 먹을까 해서 점심을 안 먹었어요 = I was thinking about asking that girl to go eat dinner together with me so I didn’t eat lunch