LEARN KOREAN (한국어) [GRAMMAR] #1

KOREAN PASSIVE VERBS - NON-하다 VERBS

So far you have only learned how to change ~하다 verbs into the passive tense. There are, of course many verbs in Korean that don't end in ~하다. When dealing with words not ending in 하다, there is often a separate (but very similar) word that can be used to indicate the passive voice. These words will always be presented separately in the vocabulary lists. Here are some examples:

켜다 - to turn on
켜지다 - to be turned on

끄다 - to turn off
꺼지다 - to be turned off

닫다 - to close
닫히다 - to be closed

The words above are just some examples of active verbs and their passive equivalents. There are many more of these active-passive pairs, and unfortunately there is no way to instinctively know which one is active and which one is passive. In all of the examples above, the longer word (i.e. the word with one more syllable) is the passive verb. However, sometimes the longer word is the active verb, for example:

붙다 - to be attached
붙이다 - to attach

끓다 - to be boiling
끓이다 - to boil

If you look at these examples, you might think "Oh, so maybe the pattern is – if there is an active-passive pair where "이" is the difference between the two, then the longer word will be the active verb." Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Here are two other examples of active-passive pairs that show the opposite:

쓰다 - to write
쓰이다 - to be written

보다 - to see
보이다 - to be seen

There are many instances of these active-passive pairs in Korean, and there is no way to know which one is active or which one is passive unless you have specifically memorized it. This is just something that you will have to memorize whenever you come across it. The only thing that is helpful is that the active verb usually looks very similar to the passive verb – with just one syllable added or deleted from the active form.

You can treat these passive verbs just like the passive verbs you learned (되다 and 받다 verbs). Make sure you use the passive verb and not the active verb (for example – use 닫히다 instead of 닫다 in a passive sentence):

밥은 학교에 의해 제공된다 - food is provided by the school
밥은 학교에 의해 제공되었다 - food was provided by the school
문은 바람에 의해 닫혔어요 - The door was closed by the wind

When dealing with these passive verbs however, you need to think about whether or not that passive verb is in the state of something. For example, every passive verb you learned (하다 to 되다 and 하다 to 받다) were not passive verbs in the state of something. For example, again:

나는 너의 말에 감동받았어 - I was impressed with what you said

Simply means that you were impressed. It does not mean that you are in the state of being impressed. But, in these sentences:

The computer is on.
The TV is off
The door is locked

All of those nouns are in the state of something. The computer is in the state of being on, the TV is in the state of being off, and the door is in the state of locked. To indicate that something "is in the state" of something in Korean, you must add ~아/어 있다 to the passive verb. For example:

As you know, 있다 has many usages and meanings in Korean. Sometimes 있다 is a verb, and sometimes it is an adjective. When used as ~아/어 있다 as described here, 있다 is a verb. For now, this is only important to you when conjugating in the plain form. In the future, there will be other times when this distinction will be important.

저는 컴퓨터를 켰어요 - I turned the computer on
컴퓨터가 켜져 있어요 - The computer is (in the state of) on

저는 TV를 껐어요 - I turned the TV off
TV가 꺼져 있어요 - The TV is (in the state of) off

저는 문을 잠갔어요 - I locked the door
문이 잠겨 있어요 - The door is (in the state of) locked

Notice that ~이/가 is used in the passive sentences above. In most cases, this is usually more natural with these types of sentences. Don't worry about that for now and focus more on how the verbs (both active and passive) are being used.

I get a lot of people who are confused about this "state" nonsense of these passive verbs. I would like to fully describe how these words can be used to describe that something is in a "state" and compare them to the same passive verb that is not in that state. For example:

저는 문을 닫았어요 - I closed the door
This sentence is an active sentence. It has an active verb, and has an object. This should be no problem.

문이 닫혔어요 = The door was closed
This is a passive sentence. It is indicating that at some point in the past, the door was closed by something or someone. This is the exact passive equivalent of "저는 문을 닫았어요" – the only difference is that we have no idea who/what closed the door. Though you could assume that the door (after that point) was in the state of "closed" this sentence does not specifically indicate that.

문이 바람에 닫혔어요 - The door was closed by the wind
This is essentially the same sentence as above, but in this case we know how the door was closed. Again, though you could assume that the door (after that point) was in the state of "closed" this sentence does not specifically indicate that.

문이 닫혀 있었어요 - The door was closed
This is another passive sentence, but notice the difference between this sentence and the two examples above. Here, the sentence is specifically indicating that the door was in the state of "closed". Here, we have absolutely no idea if something/somebody had opened it recently; all we know is that, at that time, the door was not open.

저는 문을 닫아요 - I close the door
This is another active sentence with an active verb. Though it makes sense, it probably wouldn't be said like this unless there was some sort of adverb or other information in the sentence (for example, "I close the door every day at 9:00pm")

문이 닫혀요 - The door closes
While technically correct, you would need some other information to make this sentence more natural (for example, "the door closes every day at 9:00pm"). This is the exact passive equivalent of "저는 문을 닫아요" – except for that in this example, there is no information given as to who/what will close the door. The sentence is not referring to the door being in the state of "closed", but rather, indicating that door somehow closes.

문이 닫혀 있어요 - The door is closed
Notice the difference between this example and the one above. This sentence is not referring to the door closing. It is only stating that the door is currently in the state of "closed"

문이 닫힐 거예요 - The door will close
Again, this example is referring to the door somehow closing. It is the exact passive equivalent of "저는 문을 닫을 거예요" – except for that in this example, there is no information given as to who/what will close the door.

문이 닫혀 있을 거예요 - The door will be closed
This is a passive sentence that is indicating that the door will be in the state of "closed" in the future. It does not indicate who/what will close the door; all we know is that, at that time in the future, the door will be closed.

Just because an active verb has a passive equivalent, it does not mean you can attach ~아/어 있다 to that word to describe that it is in the "state" of something. Typically this is only done for words like on, off, open, closed, etc...

A good example of this not working with a passive verb is with 속이다 and 속다.

속이다 - to trick somebody
속다 - to be tricked

나는 친구를 속였어 - I tricked my friend
This is an active sentence.

나는 친구에게 속았어 - I was tricked by my friend
This is a passive sentence

나는 속아 있다...
... I am... in the state of being tricked.
This doesn't make sense. Once you're tricked, you're tricked. You do not continue being in the state of "tricked" like a door continues to be open once it is open.

Here's an example that I am including:

펜이 탁자에 놓여 있었어요 - The pen was (in the state of) laying on the table