LEARN KOREAN (한국어) [GRAMMAR] #1

TO BE: 이다

Let's start building sentences in Korean. We will start by making simple sentences using the word 이다. The translation for 이다 is "to be." English speakers often don't realize how difficult the word "to be" is. Depending on who is being referred to, the word "to be" could be any of the underlined words below:

I am a man
He is a man
They are men
I was a man
They were men

In each of those sentences, a different word (is, are, was, were) is used depending on the subject and tense of the sentence. I can't imagine how difficult this would be for an English learner. In Korean, the 이다 is used to represent all of those "to be" words.

As mentioned earlier, 이다 can be conjugated. In that way, 이다 is similar to verbs and adjectives, but the rules for 이다 are often (but not always) different. I will teach you how 이다 differs from verbs and adjectives as it becomes important in later lessons.

Like adjectives, 이다 can not act on object. Only verbs can act on objects. However, in sentences that are predicated by adjectives, there will not be an object.

When we use adjectives in English, we must also use "to be" words like am, is and are. Unlike in English, 이다 is not used in these types of sentences. That is, we do not use 이다 to indicate that something "is" an adjective.

However, 이다 is used to indicate that a noun is a noun. The basic structure for a sentence predicated by 이다 is:

[noun 은/는] [another noun] [이다]

For example:
나는 남자이다 - I am a man

Notice that 이다 is attached directly to the second noun. Verbs and adjectives are not attached to nouns like this, but 이다 is. It would be incorrect to include a space between the second noun and 이다.

Although it might look and feel like 남자 is an object in that sentence, it is not. 이다, like adjectives and unlike verbs cannot act on an object. It would be incorrect to include the object particle on the second noun.

Other examples of 이다 in use:
나는 여자이다 - I am a woman
나는 선생님이다 - I am a teacher
나는 사람이다 - I am a person