- 아이가 울고 있다 = 아이가 운다
The baby is crying. - 학생들이 공부하고 있다 = 학생들이 공부한다
The students are studying. - 비가 오고 있다 = 비가 온다
It is raining. - 내 아들은 학교에 가있다 = 내 아들은 학교에 갔다.
My son is at school. - 교실에 난로를 설치해 있다 = 교실에 난로을 설치했다.
A heater is installed in the classroom.
As you can see from the above examples, the ~고 있다 and ~어 있다 patterns seem to be unnecessary.
Another interesting thing about the Korean language is that adverbs play an important role. For example, a simple adverb can change a sentence from present continuous to simple present tense. Consider the following examples:
- 아이가 운다.......................The baby is crying.
아이가 자주 운다................The baby frequently cries. - 학생들이 공부한다..............The students are studying.
학생들이 매일 공부한다.......The students study daily. - 비가 온다...........................It is raining.
비가 자주 온다....................It frequently rains.
Can anyone think of a situation where ~고 있다 or ~어 있다 is necessary? Couldn't 산다 even replace a phrase like 살아 있다 (to be alive)?
12 comments:
There is a difference from what I've seen.
서고 있다 implies that I'm in the action of standing up.
서 있다 implies that I'm in the state of standing (but not moving)
So I believe there are differences where 고 있다 means it's a continuous motion and 어 있다 implies a continuous state.
Hi Matt,
Koreans would not normally say 서고 있다 to refer to the action of standing up from a sitting position; they would normally say 일어선다.
서 있다, on the other hand, is quite common, but I think 서 있다 could be replaced with 선다 without any difference in meaning.
I think Korean doesn't care as much about tense as they do in English. In an English sentence, it is perhaps the most important part, as in "I went tomorrow" makes absolutely no sense. In Korean, and I will simply follow G. BEvers here, there seems to be no *must* reason for saying 고 있다 as opposed to saying simply 울어요. That's why they frequently just give the 어/아 form. as for if the action is ongoing, well, it's plain from the context or from what's right in front of you. I think Korean sentences emphasize more nouns and adverbs than they do verbs, anyways.
So, I have many questions about when to use Korean verb tenses, as they usually defy categorization. can anybody say if it's
왔으면 했을텐데 or 왔으면 했었을텐데 In English it would be the past perfect, but in my experience, they are used interchangeably.
Hi Joseph,
I think Koreans spend more time worrying about English grammar than they do their own grammar, but 내일 갔습니다 (I went tomorrow) would not make sense in Korean, either. :)
Just ignore the -았었 construction because Korean does not need it, just as it does not need -었던. The -았었 construction is just a Korean attempt to imitate the English past perfect, but Korean does just fine without it. Therefore, 왔으면 했을텐데 is all you need to say.
http://ezcorean.com/korean_grammar/Verb_tenses/examples_of_Korean_under-appreciating_tense
I have over time compiled a few examples and put them together under one heading. Someobody may find it interesting. At the very least, I get another link to my site ^^
I have another link, this one with an mp3 file, too
I have a maybe dumb question:
How can you make
아이가 운다
more polite?
임금님의 아이께서 웁십니다.
is that right?
가 -> 께서
울다 -> 웁시다 -> 웁십니다.
I don't believe you'd ever use 께서 on a baby, or possibly even 시다. I'd be interested in hearing what a native thinks about it.
From what I'd guess, you would only add honorifics for the person you're talking to rather than for the baby.
아이가 웁니다 or maybe 아이가 울으십니다 would be what I'd say to someone older than me; 아이가 울어요 to someone a little older or same age; 아이가 울어 to someone obviously younger than me or who I know well. 운다 is plain form which, I believe, is used really infrequently since it's like extremely low form. I believe people mostly use it in certain phrases (like 간다!), when they talk to themselves, and in quotes.
It is interesting to note that I have heard from many Korean linguistic scholars that Korean did not originally have a 현재진행형, but that it was added later to represent foreign ideas or translate foreign expressions (I have heard the same about the 해 지다 form as well). I haven't read any papers to this fact, but I hardly think it is something they would just throw out there.
In terms of crying the word is 우십니다 NOT 울으십니다 or 웁십니다. (For 웃다 it would be 웃으십니다) When the verb root ends in ㄹ it behaves differently, and is most commonly dropped. 우는 아이가, and 웃는 아이가 NOT 울는 아이가. There is no inherent problem using honorific speech to a baby, particularly if you want to recognize the predominance of that child (Jesus, Kim Jong Il, etc. would probably all have been given honorific verb endings in texts referring to them as babies.)
너 아직 멀었어 !
Hello,
I am Korean, I just found that this site in the middle of web surfing.
Actually, there are difference between them.
We say ~고 있어 to emphasize the current state or describe situation usually in written Korean.
Normally, it can be interchangeable but the meaning is a slightly different.
We usually say:
조용히 해! 아이가 자고 있어.
샤워하고 있는데, 전화 좀 받아줄래?
지금 뭐하고 있어? 어, 밥 먹고 있어.
We normally write to describe situation:
커다란 고양이가 탁자아래에서 잠을 자고 있다.
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