KOREAN LANGUAGE TUTORIAL

LESSON 43 (Part 2)

The easiest mistake to make in that sentence is (incorrectly) not changing the latter part of the sentence to a noun. Many learners of Korean would just say the following:
내가 가장 좋아하는 것은 영화를 봐요…
But that just translates to “My favorite thing watches movies.” You need to say “My favorite thing is watching movies” which requires you to change the second clause of the sentence to a noun and then add 이다 (is).
친구는 선생님이다 = My friend is a teacher
내가 가장 좋아하는 것은 영화를 보는 것이다= My favorite thing is watching movies
… heh, complicated. That’s why I waited until this lesson to teach it to you.
Words that seem like verbs but are adjectives
There are a few words that seem a lot like verbs but are actually adjectives. In fact, I have taught these to you before. When you first learned about 있다 in Lesson 5 I told you that in this sentence:
나는 펜이 있다 = I have a pen
있다 is actually an adjective (which is why the object markers (를/을) can’t be added to them).
Also, when using 있다 to form a present progressive (I am ____ing):
나는 밥을 먹고 있다 = I am eating
있다 is an adjective
Also, when you learned about ~고 싶다 in Lesson 17, I told you that ‘싶다’ is an adjective.
When I told you that these words are adjectives, I also told you that “this pretty much means nothing to you right now, but there will be some times when you will need to know that these words are adjectives.” Well, now you need to know.
Lets look at ~고 싶다 first.
싶다 is an adjective, so you must treat it as any other adjective when describing a verb. This means that if you want to describe nouns in the present tense using 싶다 you must add ㄴ/은:
예쁜 사람 = beautiful person
똑똑한 사람 = smart person
내가 만나고 싶은 사람 = the person (who/that) I want to meet
Examples:
먹고 싶은 것이 있어요?= Do you want something do eat? (literally – do you have something that you want to eat?)
제가 가장 만나고 싶은 사람은 유재석이에요 = The person who I want to meet most is 유재석
When you want to use 싶다 to describe nouns in the past tense, you also must treat it as an adjective by adding 던 or 었던 to it:
그 것은 제가 말하고 싶었던 것이었어요 = That is what I wanted to say
Dealing with 있다 is a little bit more complicated when describing nouns.
As I said earlier, 있다 is an adjective when using it in these two ways:
나는 펜이 있다
나는 먹고 있다
You know, that when using adjectives to describe nouns in the present tense, you should add ㄴ/은 to the stem of the adjective:
예쁜 사람 = beautiful person
똑똑한 사람 = smart person
내가 만나고 싶은 사람 = the person (who/that) I want to meet
Grammatically it should be correct to do this to 있다 as well:
내가 있은 펜 = the pen that I have
내가 먹고 있은 것 = The thing I am eating
But these are incorrect. For whatever reason, when using 있다 to describe a noun in the present tense (even though it is an adjective) you must treat it as a verb. Which means that instead of adding ㄴ/은 것 to it – you must add 는 것:
내가 있는 펜 = the pen I have
내가 먹고 있는 것 = The thing I am eating
There are only a few times in all of the grammar in Korean when using 있은 would be correct. One of which is when you add ㄴ/은 후에 to verb stems to say “after I ….” as you learned in Lesson 24.
Anyways, what is weird is that if you want to use 있다 to describe nouns in the past tense, you must treat it as an adjective. This means that if you want to describe a noun with 있다 in the past tense you can attach 었던/던 to it:
그 곳에 있었던 사람들은 다 죽었다 = All the people there died

All that is kind of weird, I’ll say it one more time step by step:
- Adjectives can describe nouns. You know this. You can add ㄴ/은 to the stem of an adjective to describe a noun: 예쁜 사람. Just like you learned in Lesson 3.
- You can also use verbs to describe nouns: 만나는 사람 – like you learned in Lesson 25.
- 싶다 is an adjective, which means you have to add ㄴ/은 to it to describe a noun: 만나고 싶은 사람
- 있다 is also an adjective, but when using 있다 to describe a noun in the present tense, you must treat it as a verb (내가 먹고 있는 것). However, when describing a noun in the past tense, you should treat 있다 as an adjective (내가 먹고 있었던 것).
Using 그 (and other smaller words) in ~는 것 sentences
One thing that I want to mention before this lesson ends is how to include words like 이/그/나의/저의 in 는 것 sentences. It’s hard to describe what I mean without examples (it’s not really a “concept” so I better show you some examples.)
In English, we could say:
The person who I met. Translated into Korean would be easy: 내가 만난 사람
However, in English, we could also say something like “that person I met.” Almost the same meaning, but not exactly the same. If you were to translate that directly, it would come out like this:
그 내가 만난 사람
But in Korean, they always place those small words that can go before nouns (이/그/저/나의/저의) immediately before nouns. So, instead of saying:
그 내가 만난 사람 you should say:
내가 만난 그 사람
It’s hard to translate some of these sentences into Korean. Look at next example. You will probably be able to understand it completely, but translating it to English is very difficult:
선생님이 본 나의 영화
It would translate to something like “my movie that the teacher watched” but that sounds a little bit unnatural in English. When these sentences come up, you should realize that the noun being described (영화 – movie) is being described by two different things:
나의 영화 = my movie, and
선생님이 본 영화 = the movie that the teacher watched
Even though it is unnatural to say the full sentence in English (my movie that the teacher watched), you should be able to understand the meaning without needing to translate it directly.