How To Learn Korean Language

More Informations

To be: 이다

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.

이 다 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.