LEARN KOREAN (한국어) [GRAMMAR] #1

PRESENT PROGRESSIVE (I AM __ING): ~고 있다

Attaching ~고 있다 to the stem of verbs gives it the meaning of "I am ____ ing," – as in, I am currently doing something. It is called the "present progressive" because the action is being done in the present, and is currently "progressing" as time goes on.

This grammatical form is very common in Korean. Simply attach ~고 있다 to a verb stem:

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 ~고 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.

나는 음악을 듣고 있어 - I am listening to music
저의 아버지는 자고 있어요 - My father is sleeping
여자들은 지금 영화를 보고 있어요 - The girls are watching a movie now

This same form can be used in the past tense to mean "I was ___ing."

저는 밥을 먹고 있었어요 - I was eating
학생들은 수업 시간 동안 자고 있었어요 - The students were sleeping during class

You learned previously that 동안 has the meaning of "for" when placed after an indication of time (10년 동안 - for 10 years). However, when placed after a noun, it has the meaning of "during" (방학 동안 - during vacation/수업 시간 동안 - during class)

However, using ~고 있다 in the past tense is slightly awkward in Korean. It can be used like this, but it is often more natural to use the regular past tense conjugation instead. For example:

저는 밥을 먹고 있었어요 - I was eating
학생들은 자고 있었어요 - The students were sleeping

In most situations the sentences above could be said in the following way without any real difference in meaning:

저는 밥을 먹었어요 - I ate
학생들은 잤어요 - The students slept

Nonetheless, if you really want to stress that you were doing something, you can use this form. More examples:

저는 백화점에서 쇼핑했어요 - I shopped at the department store
대학생은 책상에서 공부를 했어요 - The university student studied at his desk

저는 백화점에서 쇼핑하고 있었어요 - I was shopping at the department store
대학생은 책상에서 공부를 하고 있었어요 - The university student was studying at his desk

~고 있다 can also be conjugated into the future tense. For example:

나는 다음 주에 시험 공부를 하고 있을 거야 - Next week, I will be studying for an exam

But, just like with the past tense of this form, the same meaning can be expressed by just using a regular future tense conjugation. Therefore, although the sentence above is correct, the same meaning can be expressed by saying:

저는 다음 주에 시험 공부를 할 거예요 - Next week, I will study for an exam

~고 있다 can usually be used very easily with most verbs, but there are some special situations that we need to talk about before we move on.

1) 살고 있다
In English, we can say "I live in Canada." You could also say "I am living in Canada," but to me it sounds more natural to say "I live in Canada." In Korean, however, "살고 있다" is often used when you want to say "I live in ________:" For example, both of these are acceptable:

저는 한국에서 살고 있어요 - I live in Korea
저는 한국에서 살아요 - I live in Korea

살다 (to live) is a little bit strange because you can actually use '에서' or '에' to indicate the place that you are living. For example, these are also correct, and have the same meaning as the previous examples:

저는 한국에 살고 있어요 - I live in Korea
저는 한국에 살아요 - I live in Korea

Although they both sound natural to Korean speakers, I've heard that ~에서 is probably the correct one.

2) 알고 있다
In English, almost every verb can go into the "I am ___ing" form. For example:

I am studying
I am praying
I am listening
I am walking
I am playing

However, one word that we would never say that way is

I am knowing

In Korean, however, it is very common to say "알고 있다." Instead of translating this to "I am knowing" it needs to be translated to "I know," because we would never say "I am knowing" in English.

나는 그것을 알고 있어 - I know that
나는 그것을 알아 - I know that

While we are on the subject of "알다," let's talk about other ways that this word is commonly used.

When a person tells you something and you want to say "okay," Korean people would use "알다" in these situations. One common time you would want to say "okay" or "알다" in this respect is when responding to a command. I haven't taught you how to give commands yet, but for the moment just accept that "집에 빨리 와" means "come home quickly."

Person 1: 집에 빨리 와! - come home quickly
Person 2: 알았어 - Okay

However, this doesn't need to be used in response to a command. It could just be any piece of new information that you want to say "okay" to. For example:

Person 1: 우리는 내일 6시에 출발 할 거야 - We will leave at 6:00 tomorrow
Person 2: 알았어 - Okay

In formal situations, it is possible to use "알았어요," but it is also very common to use the future tense formal conjugation of 알겠습니다. For example:

Person 1: 이 일을 내일까지 해야 합니다 - You have to finish this work by tomorrow
(You haven't learned the grammar for this sentence yet, so don't worry about the Korean sentence. Focus more on the English sentence, because what I am trying to teach you here is the response to that question in Korean)
Person 2: 네, 알겠습니다 - Yes, okay. (I got it)

3) 가지고 있다
A word that you learned in a previous lesson is "가지다." 가지다 is a verb that means "to have/posses." You also know that you can use 있다 to state that you "have" something. For example:

나는 펜이 있다 - I have a pen (remember that this usage of 있다 requires that 이/가 be added to the object, because 있다 is actually an adjective in this form).

When using 가지다, however, you would think that you could simply do this:

나는 펜을 가져 – I have a pen – But, it is not usually said like this. If you want to say that you have something using 가지다, you should say "가지고 있다" instead of just "가지다." For example:

나는 펜을 가지고 있어 - I have a pen
Just like how we don't say "I am knowing" in English, we also wouldn't say "I am having." Therefore, when translating "~를/을 가지고 있다" into English, you need to say "I have ____."

If you want to talk about 'people' that you 'have,' you should never use "가지고 있다.' Instead, you should use just '있다.' For example:

나는 여자 친구가 있어 - I have a girlfriend
나는 여자 친구를 가지고 있어 – this technically means "I have a girlfriend," but it's meaning is more similar to "I possess a girlfriend." If you say something like this in Korean, Korean people will probably understand you, but laugh at your mistake (similar to if somebody told me that they possess a girlfriend in English).