How To Learn Korean Language

More Informations

있다: To be at a location

있다 can also be used to indicate that something/someone is “at a location.” InLesson 1 you learned about the particle ~에 in Korean. You learned that this particle is used to indicate the place and/or time of something in a sentence. Therefore, “~에” is often used in sentences with “있다” to indicate the location of something/someone.

For example: I am at school

If we wanted to write this sentence with Korean structure and particles, we would write:

I는 school에 am at
나는 + 학교에 + 있다

This is irrelevant to you now, but when 있다 is used like this, it is again seen as an adjective.  This is confusing, but or now, try to ignore it. I begin to discuss this more in Lesson 5 when I discuss the conjugations of 있다.

나는 학교에 있다 = I am at school
(나는 학교에 있어 / 저는 학교에 있어요)

or,

나는 캐나다에 있다 = I am in Canada
(나는 캐나다에 있어 / 저는 캐나다에 있어요)

Notice the very big difference in meaning between the following sentences, and the role that particles have in each case. Because 있다 has two different meanings, changing the particles in a sentence can drastically change the meaning. For example:

나는 학교가 있다 = I have a school – this could make sense, but in most situations, you would probably want to say:
나는 학교에 있다 = I am at school

나는 잡지가 있다 = I have a magazine
나는 잡지에 있다 = I am at the magazine (this doesn’t make sense)

We can also use position words to indicate specifically where someone/something is with respect to another noun. The most common position words are:

안 = inside
위 = on top
밑 = below
옆 = beside
뒤 = behind
앞 = in front

These words are placed after a noun to indicate where an object is with respect to that noun. The particle “~에” is then attached directly to the position words. For example:

학교 앞에 = in front of the school
사람 뒤에 = behind the person
집 옆에 = beside the house
저 건물 뒤에 = behind that building

These constructions can now act as the location in a sentence:

나는 학교에 있다 = I am at school

나는 학교 앞에 있다 = I am in-front of the school
(나는 학교 앞에 있어 / 저는 학교 앞에 있어요)

Let’s make some sentences:
나는 학교 뒤에 있다 = I am behind the school
(나는 학교 뒤에 있어 / 저는 학교 뒤에 있어요)

나는 학교 옆에 있다 = I am beside the school
(나는 학교 옆에 있어 / 저는 학교 옆에 있어요)

나는 은행 안에 있다 = I am inside the bank
(나는 은행 안에 있어 / 저는 은행 안에 있어요)

개는 집 안에 있다 = The dog is in the house
(개는 집 안에 있어 / 개는 집 안에 있어요)

고양이는 의자 밑에 있다 = The cat is under the chair
(고양이는 의자 밑에 있어 / 고양이는 의자 밑에 있어요)

식당은 은행 옆에 있다 = The restaurant is next to the bank
(식당은 은행 옆에 있어 / 식당은 은행 옆에 있어요)

호텔은 학교 옆에 있다 = The hotel is next to the school
(호텔은 학교 옆에 있어 / 호텔은 학교 옆에 있어요)

You have learned that ~이/가 can be attached to nouns in sentences to indicate the object that a person “has.” ~이/가 can also be used to indicate the subject of a sentence, similar to ~는/은. What is the difference? We will talk about this in the next section.