LEARN KOREAN (한국어) [GRAMMAR] #1

POSITION VERBS

There are also many position verbs that usually act differently than regular verbs (not just in this situation, but in many situations). The most common of these are to sit (앉다), stand (서다), and to lie down (눕다).

The reason these are treated differently is because these are verbs of position. For example, if I just said:

저는 먹고 공부했어요 - I ate and studied

In that sentence, aside from the fact that one action happened after another, 먹다 and 공부하다 have no relation to each other. However, if you were to say:

저는 눕고 책을 읽었어요 – That would mean "I lied down, and then read a book" – as in, I lied down, stood up again, and then read a book. I guess technically you COULD do that, but nobody would ever do that. Instead, what you wanted to say is that you lied down, and then, while lying down, you read a book. In these situations with position verbs, the first action is related to the second action (similar to how 가다 and 오다 are related to the upcoming verb). That is why they are treated differently.

If you want to use these position verbs in this way, you need to add ~아/어서 to them:

저는 누워서 책을 읽었어요 - I lied down and read a book
나는 앉아서 쉴 거야 - I'm going to sit down and relax
저는 줄에 서서 순서를 기다렸어요 - I stood in line and waited for my turn