Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Do we really need to use 했던?

My grammar book (외국인을 위한 한국어 문법2) defines 던 and 했던 the same way:
명사를 수식하게 하고 과거 상황을 회상하거나 그 상황이 완료되지 않고 중단되었음을 나타내는 표현.

It modifies nouns and is used in expressions to show reflection on the past or to show a situation that was uncompleted or discontinued in the past.

Since 던 and 했던 mean the same thing, there is no reason to use 했던. All the example sentences using 했던 in my grammar book can be written with 던. (The English is my translation.)
  1. 어릴 때 한 동네에서 살았던 민수를 어제 만났다.
    어릴 때 한 동네에서 살 민수를 어제 만났다.
    Yesterday, I met Min-su, who had lived in the same village as me when we were children.
    .
  2. 작년에 읽었던 책은 어제 다시 읽었는데 여전히 재미있더라.
    작년에 읽 책은 어제 다시 읽었는데 여전히 재미있더라.
    Yesterday, I read a book I had started reading last year and found it still interesting.
    .
  3. 내가 전에 근무했던 회사가 아주 많이 발전했더라.
    내가 전에 근무하 회사가 아주 많이 발전했더라.
    The company I used to work at has grown a great deal.
    .
  4. 고등하교 때는 키가 작었던 영수가 지금은 몰라 볼 정도로 키가 컸더라.
    고등하교 때는 키가 작 영수가 지금은 몰라 볼 정도로 키가 컸더라.
    Yeong-su was short in high school, but he has now grown so much that I didn't recognize him.
    .
  5. 어렸을 때 예뻤던 순이가 지금은 아줌마가 다 되었다.
    어렸을 때 예쁘 순이가 지금은 아줌마가 다 되었다.
    Sun-i, who was pretty when she was young, has now become an average-looking housewife.
    .
  6. 10년 전 초등학생이었던 순이가 벌써 결혼을 한대.
    10년 전 초등학생이 순이가 벌써 결혼을 한대.
    Sun-i, who was an elementary school student ten years ago, says she is already getting married.

Notice that 던 replaced 었던 in the above sentences without any change in meaning; therefore, why bother learning the 었/았/였던 pattern?

As mentioned above, 던 can be used to show not only reflection on the past, but also to show that an action was uncompleted or interrupted in the past. In Example 2, 읽던 책 means the person started reading the book in the past, but did not finish it. It would be translated as "a book I had started reading (last year)." If he had wanted to say he had already completed reading the book (last year), he would have said 읽은 책, which translates as "a book I had read (last year)."

See the following examples:

  1. 어제 마시던 우유가 어디에 갔지?
    Where is the milk I was drinking yesterday?
  2. 어제 마신 우유가 무엇이었지?
    What was the milk I drank yesterday?

In Example 1, the person did not finish drinking all the milk yesterday and wanted to drink some more today. In Example 2, the person had drank all the milk yesterday and is curious what brand it was.

Another Reference: "Is 던 better than 한?"

44 comments:

  1. Nice! I was just about to ask the difference between something like 산 책 and 샀던 책, but one of your questions pretty much answered that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, Bluesoju.

    샀던 책 is the same as 사던 책, but I do not think either are correct.

    We do not reminisce about "buying a book," and you either buy it or not, so it is a completed action. In other words, the buying of a book happens almost instantaneously, so it cannot be interrupted.

    Therefore, you should say 산 책, not 샀던 책 or 사던 책.

    ReplyDelete
  3. In my classes at both Yonsei and SNU, we learned about the meaning and usage differences between 하던+N and 했던+N. Both are used to describe past events that were personally experienced by the speaker. But based on what our textbooks and teachers said, there is a real difference between the two. What we were taught is that 하던 refers to past actions viewed as persisting or repeating over a period of time, while 했던 refers to past actions viewed as single events. Note that the same real event can be perceived or experienced either way, depending on the feeling of the speaker at the time s/he is speaking. (Note too that both of these differ from 한+N, which refers to a past action whose result is still relevant to the present state. The two patterns with 던 refer to events whose results are not considered relevant to the present state.)

    Here is an example of a contrasting pair of phrases we were given:

    1a. 다니던 초등 학교 "the elementary school that I used to attend"

    1b. 다녔던 초등 학교 "the elementary school that I attended"

    In (1a), attending the school is recalled as an ongoing event occurring over a period of time. In (1b), attending the school is viewed as a single action. (1a) has more of a feeling of re-experiencing the event as one speaks about it.

    Here's an example where one of the contrasting phrases sounds a bit odd, but is still possible:

    (2a) 내가 결한 하던 사람 "the person that I kept getting married to over a period of time"
    (2b) 내가 결혼 했던 사람 "the person I was married to (but am no longer married to, i.e. no connection to present state)"

    (2a) is a bit odd because one would have to be marrying and divorcing the same person over and over again for it to make sense.

    Compare these two with:

    (2c) 내가 결혼 한 사람 "the person I married (and am still married to)"

    In some cases, the semantics of a particular phrase exclude the possibility of using 하던, because the referent is a point in time rather than a period of time.

    (3) 결한식 때 입었던 옷 "the clothes that I wore at the wedding"

    It's not possible to say *결혼식 때 입던 옷 because 결혼식 때 is a point in time, and this is incompatible with the 하던 pattern that implies continuous or repeated activity over a stretch of time.

    Another example of a context in which 하던 is unnatural is:

    (4) 내가 입학 했던 학교 "the school that I got into (and I'm no longer there)"

    You can't say 내가 입학 하던 학교 because getting into a school is by its nature an instantaneous event.

    Compare 내가 입학 한 학교 "the school that I got into (and am still attending now)".

    The examples above, if they are correct, show that 하던 and 했던 are not freely interchangeable and have clearly different meanings. Because I am not a native speaker, I don't have a good intuition about these patterns. I would be curious to learn from a native speaker if the examples and translations I gave above are correct.

    Gerry, in response to your last comment, I think it may be possible to say 샀던 책 if you imagine an appropriate context for the utterance. I think a speaker could say it when reminiscing about a book that s/he bought in the past and no longer owns: "that book that I once bought (long ago) ..."

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  4. Lance wrote,

    1a. 다니던 초등 학교 "the elementary school that I used to attend"

    1b. 다녔던 초등 학교 "the elementary school that I attended"

    In (1a), attending the school is recalled as an ongoing event occurring over a period of time. In (1b), attending the school is viewed as a single action. (1a) has more of a feeling of re-experiencing the event as one speaks about it.

    ------------

    Com'on, Lance. Can't you recognize double talk (referred to as "BS" in Texas) when you see or hear it?

    What real difference it there between "the school I attended" (다니던 초등 학교) and "the school I used to attend" (다녔던 초등 학교)? Your two examples both mean the same thing.

    The above double talk is a perfect example of why it is so difficult for foreigners to learn Korean.백봉자's "외국어로서의 한국어문법사전," which is published by Yonsei Univerisity Press, gives the same double talk.

    Also, here is the Yahoo Dictionary definition for 던, which is basically the same thing you said.

    어미 (과거와 관련된) 관형사형 어미의 하나. 1 지난 사실을 돌이켜 생각함을 나타낸다. 함께 거닐- 길. 몹시도 춥- 대륙의 겨울.
    2 과거에 지속된 사실임을 나타낸다. 하- 일을 끝내고 나왔다. 정정하시- 분이었다. 허허벌판이- 곳이 지대가 되었다.


    Now, here is the definition for 던 from the 국립국어원, which is the definition I gave:

    어미 -
    (이다’의 어간, 용언의 어간 또는 어미 ‘-으시’, ‘-었-’, ‘-겠-’ 뒤에 붙어)
    앞말이 관형어 구실을 하게 하고 어떤 일이 과거에 완료되지 않고 중단되었다는 미완(未完)의 의미를 나타내는 어미.


    Notice that the 국립국어원 defined 던 and 었던 the same way, which is that they are used to refer to an unfinished action in the past. There was nothing mentioned about "a fact that had continued in the past."

    One dictionary says one thing, and another dictionary says another. Koreans, themselves, are obviously confused.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Lance wrote:

    (2a) 내가 결한 하던 사람 "the person that I kept getting married to over a period of time"
    (2b) 내가 결혼 했던 사람 "the person I was married to (but am no longer married to, i.e. no connection to present state)"


    Your first translation is ridiculous. Both sentences say the same thing, which is, "the person I was married to" (but am no longer married to).

    Lance wrote:

    (2c) 내가 결혼 한 사람 "the person I married (and am still married to)"

    In some cases, the semantics of a particular phrase exclude the possibility of using 하던, because the referent is a point in time rather than a period of time.


    결혼한 사람 means you are still married to the person and 결혼하던 사람 means you are no longer married to the person.

    Lance wrote:

    (3) 결한식 때 입었던 옷 "the clothes that I wore at the wedding"

    It's not possible to say *결혼식 때 입던 옷 because 결혼식 때 is a point in time, and this is incompatible with the 하던 pattern that implies continuous or repeated activity over a stretch of time.


    Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! The sentence should be 결혼식 때 입은 옷. The reason you say 입은 instead of 입던 is because a wedding dress is not something you stop wearing in the middle of a wedding. In other words, when you wear a wedding dress, you complete the action in the past and do not normally wear it again.

    Lance wrote:

    (4) 내가 입학 했던 학교 "the school that I got into (and I'm no longer there)"

    You can't say 내가 입학 하던 학교 because getting into a school is by its nature an instantaneous event.

    Compare 내가 입학 한 학교 "the school that I got into (and am still attending now)".


    Again, 하던 and 했던 mean the same thing, so you cannot say either 입학하던 or 입학했던 since, as you said, 입학하다 is an action that is so brief that you do not normally quit in the middle of doing it.

    Did you make up the above examples or did you get them from a book?

    샀던 책 and 사던 책 are not correct for the same reason that 입학하던 and 입학했던 were not correct. The process of buying something is normally too brief to stop in the middle of doing it. The correct phrase should be 산 책. Also, we do not reminisce about buying something. We do not reminisce about an action; we reminisce about an image.

    When people say 샀던 책 or 사던 책, what they really mean to say is 있던 책, which means "the book I had" (but no longer have).

    ReplyDelete
  6. Gerry,

    In answer to your question, I neither made up the examples nor got them from a book. All of these sentences, and explanations of their meaning, were told to me by native-speaker Korean language teachers. I have no reason to doubt their authenticity. These speakers were very confident that in certain situations 했던 could be used and 하던 could not. That means there is a real difference in meaning and usage between these two forms. If my explanation of this difference sounds like BS to you, then that just means I have failed to explain it clearly.

    Do you think the English sentences "He died" and "He was dying" mean the same thing? At some level of basic meaning you could say that they do. But if you gather all of the data on how these sentences can be used in English, you discover that they are not interchangeable. One has to explain why they behave differently in grammatical terms. For example, "He was dying for two weeks" is a good sentence, but "*He died for two weeks" is not. There is a reason for this.

    The difference lies in whether the action ("to die") is conceived of as an ongoing process or an instantaneous event. Depending on the context in which someone is speaking, or the way they are conceiving of the event at the time they speak, either conception is possible. If you think this explanation is double-speak, then you must come up with a better one. But you can't just wish away the language data.

    Verbal tense and aspect distinctions that exist in one language do not always exist in other languages. For example, there is no tense in Chinese. A Chinese speaker learning English for the first time might feel that the explanations of the differences between "I eat", "I do eat", "I am eating", "I ate", "I was eating", "I will have eaten" etc. are all "double-speak" because they don't translate directly into Chinese and have to be explained.

    I don't understand what you mean about being unable to reminisce about past actions. Perhaps we have different understanding of what "reminisce" means. Perhaps we could substitute the word "recall" for "reminisce"?

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  7. By the way, have you asked a native speaker whether the phrase "결한식 때 입었던 옷" is acceptable or not? I don't understand why you have labeled it "wrong" when my Korean teachers think it is correct.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Lance,

    In his book, "우리가 정말 알아야 할 우리말 바로 쓰기," 이수열 says that -ㅆ던, -았(었)던, and -였던 are deformities (기형) of 던 that Koreans have made in an attempt to imitate the English "past perfect" form, but he says that 하던 and 했던 mean the same thing, which is what the 국립국어원 dictionary says.

    Personally, I think 했던 was created by people who were unsure of how to use 한 and 하던, so they tried to combine the two in 했던 with the hope that it would cover both "completed past actions" and "incompleted past actions."

    When your Korean teachers said that 결혼식 때 입었던 옷 was correct, but 결혼식 때 입던 옷 was incorrect, they were treating 입었던 as a completed past action rather than an incompleted one. However, both sentences mean the same thing, so how can one be correct and the other be wrong?

    The fact that some Korean dictionaries say 던 means one thing and others say it means another shows that Koreans, themselves, are confused by 던, so you should be suspicious of one particular Korean's explanation of it. In fact, you should be suspicious of even some Korean dictionaries. Therefore, I suggest you follow the 국립국어원 definition.

    I do not think your "He died" and "He was dying" example applies here. 죽은 남자 (a dead man) makes sense, but 죽던 남자 does not make sense unless we are talking about people who died and have come back to life.

    As for reminsce, consider the following:

    살던 집 simply means "the house I used to live in." There is no reminscing involved. However, 편하던 집 (the comfortable house), which actually means "the house I remember being comfortable," is an example of reminscing. It is an "image" we have of the old house. The difference between 살다 and 편하다 is that 살다 is a verb and 편하다 is an adjective.

    Also, consider 예쁘다, which is an adjective that means "pretty."

    예쁜 여자 means "a pretty girl" or "a girl that is pretty."

    예쁘던 여자 means "a girl that was pretty" or "a girl I remember being pretty."

    예쁘던 여자 is an example of reminscing. It refers to an "image" of a girl I once knew. She may not be pretty anymore, but I remember her as being pretty.

    Again, if your Korean teachers said that 결혼식 때 입던 옷 was wrong, then that means 결혼식 때 입었던 옷 is also wrong because the two sentences mean the same thing. Your teachers were using 했던 as a replacement for 한, instead of 던, which is wrong.

    No, I did not ask a Korean about it because any Korean I ask is just as likely to give me the same BS as your teachers gave you. I am basing my opinion on the 국립국어원 dictionary definition and on what 이수열 has written about it.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hi,
    I'm a native Korean and somewhat ended up here..
    I'm intrigued because as a native, I'm not used to analyzing Korean grammatically.
    I dunno if this thread is still going on, but I'd say that what Lance said sounds pretty much correct to me. All his examples make sense to me.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Adding to the last comment,

    I think few Korean would find anything wrong in the sentences with 했던 that Lance gave as examples.

    I thought of an English equivalent of this discussion:

    (a) I wish I were there.
    (b) I wish I was there.

    From what I learned, (a) is historically more correct form, but many native speakers wouldn't regard (b) as wrong.

    Likewise, I'm quite sure very few Koreans would regard 했던 as the same as 하던, and we do use 했던 in everyday life.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Still me :)

    The two sentences in the second example you gave sound different to me.

    작년에 읽었던 책 - the book I read last year (I finished reading it)
    작년에 읽던 책 - the book I was reading last year (I didn't finish reading it)

    And the reason the rest of the examples sound the same? I think this is it:

    (a) I have lived here for 5 years.
    (b) I have been living here for 5 years.

    (a) and (b) use different forms but there's little difference in meaning.

    I hope I got my point across.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Adding:

    (a) He has painted the house.
    (b) He has been painting the house.

    But I know these two imply different things.

    So I guess, 했던 and 하던 can be the same or different, according to the context(perhaps according to the verbs used).

    ReplyDelete
  13. Annonymous,

    Your English translation of 작년에 읽었던 책 shows that you used 읽었던 as a replacement for 읽은, instead of as a replacement for 읽던. Why did you say, 작년에 읽었던 책 instead of 작년에 읽은 책?

    You are a perfect example of what is happening in Korea. Many Koreans these days are mistakenly substituting 했던 for 한, instead of 하던. In other words, many Koreans are forgetting about the 한 construction and are using 했던, instead.

    Annonymous wrote:

    So I guess, 했던 and 하던 can be the same or different, according to the context(perhaps according to the verbs used).

    "The same or different, according to the context"? It has nothing to do with context. The reason it seems that way to you is that you are seeing incorrect usages mixed in with correct usages.

    The upshot is that many Koreans these days are confused by 한, 하던, and 했던, and their attempts to try to justify 했던 with crazy explanations are making Korean language seem more difficult than it really is.

    Basically, 한 is used for "completed actions" in the past, and 하던 is used for "incompleted actions." That fact that many Koreans are using 했던 as a replacement for both 한 and 하던 is what is causing all the problems.

    했던 should just be made illegal, and anyone caught using it should be fined a million won. That would solve the problem.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Lance,

    I have had second thoughts on 결혼식 때 입던 옷. Now, I think one could say either 입은 옷 or 입던 옷, depending on the circumstances.

    In regard to clothes, we wear them, take them off, and then wear them again later, so 어제 입던 옷 sounds more appropriate than 어제 입은 옷 since 입던 implies that you take off your clothes, but still have them to wear again later. The phrase 입은 옷, however, implies that you no longer have the clothes.

    In regard to a wedding gown, many women in the West wear them just once, but still keep them for sentimental reasons, and some may even allow their daughters to wear their old wedding gowns when they get married, so, in the West, I think a wedding gown could be treated like any other piece of clothing by saying 결혼식 때 입던 옷.

    In Korea, however, Koreans normally do not buy their wedding gowns, but rent them, so in Korea, it would usually be more appropriate to say 결혼식 때 입은 옷 since Koreans would no longer have the wedding gown to wear again.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Okay,
    I'm the anonymous above.

    You say "many Koreans" confuse 했던 and 하던, but I think that would be "almost all Koreans" even including my grandparents.
    If what you say was true in the past, it isn't anymore in real life.

    I don't know if I'm confused or not,
    but I really think you should give up some notions of yours if you don't want to sound awkward in Korea..

    Yeah, 작년에 읽었던 책 and 작년에 읽은 책 are pretty much the same for me, but not 작년에 읽던 책.

    Your last example, 결혼식 때 입던 옷 can mean "the clothes I used to wear to somebody elses' weddings" to me, but not "the wedding gown I wore at my wedding."

    I'm working in English education industry in Korea, and I consult grammar books from Oxford and Cambridge all the time, but I also respect what my fellow native workers say, even though I can't find it on grammar books. Because I'm not a native, and I don't know what's actually going on in the native language scene.

    If you are studying Korean for research purpose only, I understand your approach.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Annonymous wrote,

    Yeah, 작년에 읽었던 책 and 작년에 읽은 책 are pretty much the same for me, but not 작년에 읽던 책.

    읽었던 책 and 읽은 책 sound pretty much the same to you because you are using 읽었던 in place of 읽은, instead of 읽던. That causes a big problem because Korean dictionaries and grammar books say that 던 and 었던 mean the same thing.

    Annonymous wrote:

    Your last example, 결혼식 때 입던 옷 can mean "the clothes I used to wear to somebody elses' weddings" to me, but not "the wedding gown I wore at my wedding."

    Yes. The clothes you would wear to someone else's wedding would be clothes you would wear more than once, so you would use 입던 옷, but in Korea, wedding gowns are normally rented, so you would just wear them one time, which is why 결혼식 때 입던 옷 sounds strange to you.

    I think trendy, ungrammatical Korean is a big problem in Korea, and I do not want to be part of the problem by respecting those who use it. I think people should be correcting each other when they misuse the language.

    Whenever I misuse English or Korean, I want someone to correct me.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I found this article in the Q&A database on 국립국어원 site. It's pretty close to what I think.

    답변 제목: 하던/했던 (의미)
    답변 일자: 2008.03.31.
    작 성 자: 이수연



    안녕하십니까?
    ‘하던’과 ‘했던’은 모두 과거를 나타내는 것이기 때문에 특별한 차이를 드러내지 않는 경우가 더 많습니다. 다만 화자가 어떤 의도로 말을 하느냐에 따라서 약간의 차이가 있는 경우가 있습니다. ‘-던’은 앞말이 관형사 구실을 하게 하고 어떤 일이 과거에 완료되지 않고 중단되었다는 미완(未完)의 의미를 나타내거나, 과거에 지속적으로 반복했던 동작이나 한 번 했던 일을 나타낼 때 쓰입니다. 그런데 ‘-던’ 앞에 ‘-았(었/였)-’이 결합된 '-았던(었던/였던)'은 '-았(었/였)-'이 이야기하는 시점에서 볼 때 사건이 이미 일어났음을 나타내는 어미이기 때문에 과거와 단절된 것을 나타내게 됩니다. 이처럼 ‘-던’과 ‘-았던(었던/였던)’은 모두 과거의 일을 나타내는 것이기는 하지만 '-던'을 쓰면 과거에 습관적으로 지속된 동작이나 진행되다가 완료되지 않은 미완의 동작을 나타내고, '-았던(었던/였던)'을 쓰면 현재는 과거의 그 일과는 완전히 단절되었음을 더 나타낸다고 할 수 있습니다

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  18. Anonymous,

    Yes, the poster's definition shows that she is making the same mistake you are making.

    That poster's definition of -던 differs from the 국립국어원 dictionary definition. Let's compare the two.

    국립국어원 Dictionary Definition:

    ((‘이다’의 어간, 용언의 어간 또는 어미 ‘-으시’, ‘-었-’, ‘-겠-’ 뒤에 붙어))
    앞말이 관형어 구실을 하게 하고 어떤 일이 과거에 완료되지 않고 중단되었다는 미완(未完)의 의미를 나타내는 어미.

    (It attaches to the root of 이다, the roots of verbs and adjectives (용언), and to the end of the endings -으시, -었-, -겠-.) It is a post-position modifier ending that means "incompleteness" and indicates that something was not completed in the past and was ended.


    The Poster's Definition says the exact same thing as the dictionary definition above, but then adds the following:

    과거에 지속적으로 반복했던 동작이나 한 번 했던 일을 나타낼 때 쓰입니다.

    It is used to show that a continuous activity is repeated or done only once in the past.


    Something that is "done only once in the past" (한 번 했던 일을) would use 던?

    The poster's definition of 었던:

    ‘-던’ 앞에 ‘-았(었/였)-’이 결합된 '-았던(었던/였던)'은 '-았(었/였)-'이 이야기하는 시점에서 볼 때 사건이 이미 일어났음을 나타내는 어미이기 때문에 과거와 단절된 것을 나타내게 됩니다.

    It is an ending that indicates that at the time of the conversation, the incident had already taken place and, therefore, is now separate.


    The 국립국어원 Dictionary definition of ㄴ/은:

    「1」앞말이 관형어 구실을 하게 하고 동작이 과거에 이루어졌음을 나타내는 어미.

    A post-position modifying marker that shows that an action happened in the past.

    「2」앞말이 관형어 구실을 하게 하고 동작이 완료되어 그 상태가 유지되고 있음을 나타내는 어미.

    A post-position modifying marker that shows that an action was completed in the past and the situation still exists.


    Notice the poster's definition for 었던 is the definition for ㄴ/은. Even in her definition for 던, she wrote 한 번 했던 일 instead of 한 번 한 일, which is more evidence that Koreans are simply substituting 했던 for 한.

    As the 국립국어원 Dictionary definitions show, -던 and -었던 are used when something was "uncompleted" or stopped in the past, but ㄴ/은 is used when something is completed.

    Because Koreans are confused about the 었던 construction and sometimes use it to replace 던 and other times to replace ㄴ/은, it should be banned from the language to eliminate the confusion. Since 던 and 었던 mean the same thing, 었던 will not be missed.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Well, but the poster isn't any random Korean who visits the site, but a 국립국어원 employee.

    And another point.

    ((‘이다’의 어간, 용언의 어간 또는 어미 ‘-으시’, ‘-었-’, ‘-겠-’ 뒤에 붙어))
    앞말이 관형어 구실을 하게 하고 어떤 일이 과거에 완료되지 않고 중단되었다는 미완(未完)의 의미를 나타내는 어미.

    I think this definition you gave is for 어미 "던", not "하던." I found the same definition when I looked up "던." "하던" does not have a separate entry, for it is actually made up of 하 and 던.

    했던 is 했+던, 하던 is 하+던, and 했 and 하 are two different 선어말어미.

    So, it's natural that they have the meaning of "던" in common, but 하던 also has the meaning of 하, 했던 of 했.

    So, this is all I can do, and I have nothing more to say.

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  20. Correction:

    Sorry, I was wrong in the definition of the term 선어말어미.

    I should put it this way (it's basically the same though)

    하던 only has one 어말어미 "던", 했던 has a 선어말어미 "었" and 어말어미 "던."

    선어말어미 "었" does have its own distinct meaning when you look it up in the dictionary.

    So this is my conclusion:

    던 only has the meaning of 던 itself, while 었던 has the meaning of 었 as well.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anonymous,

    How do you know the poster was an employee of the 국립국어원, and if it was an employee, why did she give a different definition from that in the organization's own dictionary?

    Yes, the definition was for 던. When I write 한, 하던, and 했던 in my comments, I am only using the 하다 verb as a model.

    Anonymous wrote:

    So this is my conclusion:

    던 only has the meaning of 던 itself, while 었던 has the meaning of 었 as well.


    -던 refers to an "uncompleted" past event, and -었 refers to a "completed" past event, so are you saying that -었던 refers to an "uncompleted past event that is completed"?

    Why can't you tell me the difference between 읽었던 책 and 읽은 책?

    Why do you refuse to accept the dictionary definitions?

    You and many other Koreans are haphazardly using 했던 as a substitute for both 하던 and 한. That's the problem that drives me crazy since 하던 and 한 mean two very different things.

    Here are some examples from 이수열's book:

    1)1998. 9. 11. KBS 1 TV "부천 가스폭발사고 현장보도"

    불길이 거세어서 진화에 나섰던 소방서원들이 어려움을 겪고 있습니다.


    It should be 나선, not 나섰던.

    불길이 거세어서 진화에 나선 소방서원들이 어려움을 겪고 있습니다.

    The fire has gotten so strong that the firemen who have come out to fight it are having a difficult time.

    Using 너섰던 would mean the firemen went to the fire, but gave up and came home, which is not what KBS meant to say.

    2) 1998. 10. 11. EBS TV "'토익' 강좌"

    지금 들으셨던 문장의 내용을 파악하셨습니까?

    It should be 들으신 문장, not 들으셨던 문장, since they listened to the full sentence and did not stop listening in the middle of it.

    지금 들으신 문장의 내용을 파악하셨습니까?
    Did you understand the contents of the sentence you just heard?

    3) 1998. 9. 12. 조선일보 "이규태 코너"

    생가도 살았던 집도 무덤도 없고 이렇다 할 건조물도 없는데 이렇게 문화재 개발에 우선한다.

    Notice that in the above sentence, 살았던 was used with the meaning of 살던, which 이수열 says should be used instead of 살었던 because he says 었던 is a deformity of 던.

    4) 1997. 9. 13. 한국일보 "앞과 뒤"

    지지리도 못살았던 우리의 옛날 추석에도 마음만은 풍성했다.
    Our hearts were exuberant on Chuseok, even when they occuring during times of extreme poverty of our past.

    Notice that 못살았던 was used instead of 못살던.
    ------------

    Even the Korean media are using 했던 as a substitute for both 한 and 하던. No wonder Koreans are confused.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Because the visitors can only ask questions, not answer them. The authority to reply to the existing questions is only given to the administrator. Try it yourself, if in doubt.

    When using 하다 verb as a model, it's all the same. 하 and 했 are different from each other (as in 하다 and 했다). 했 is actually 하+였, which has 였 added to 하. Why are you ignoring the difference?

    ((‘이다’의 어간, 용언의 어간 또는 어미 ‘-으시’, ‘-었-’, ‘-겠-’ 뒤에 붙어))
    앞말이 관형어 구실을 하게 하고 어떤 일이 과거에 완료되지 않고 중단되었다는 미완(未完)의 의미를 나타내는 어미.

    I don't understand why you take this definition corresponding to both 했던 and 던. It's explaining 던, ‘-었-’뒤에 붙어 means nothing more than it can come after 었.

    If you take the definition as regarding only 던, nothing's wrong. 했던 is only 하+였+던, each of which has a separate entry in the dictionary.

    Your examples sound awkward to me as well, but for different reasons.

    In the examples 1) and 2), they are reporting what is going on now, so 했던, which means a past incident separate from the present, is naturally inappropriate.

    In 3) and 4), the verb 살다 is the case when 했던 and 던 has little difference in meaning. (The poster from 국립국어원 as well as I already pointed out that they can be used in the same meaning depending on the context.) So 었 in this case is redunduncy.

    Anyway, I almost gave up trying to convince you :)

    Thank you for giving me an opportunity to think this over. It was interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anonymous wrote:

    Because the visitors can only ask questions, not answer them. The authority to reply to the existing questions is only given to the administrator. Try it yourself, if in doubt.

    When using 하다 verb as a model, it's all the same. 하 and 했 are different from each other (as in 하다 and 했다). 했 is actually 하+였, which has 였 added to 하. Why are you ignoring the difference?


    Stop your double talk. I know how 했다 is formed and I know what -었/았/였 means, but that does not have anything to do with the meaning of 었던 because 었 is an unnecessary appendage, like "snake feet" (사족 - 蛇足).

    "The National Institute of the Korean Language" (국립국어원) is the government regulator of the Korean language. In November 2005, it published a grammar book entitled "Korean Grammar for Foreigners 2" (외국인을 위한 한국어 문법2), of which I have the February 2007 printing of the book. The book defines 던 and 았던 exactly the same. I have already written about it in this post, but here is the definition again for both 던 and 았던:

    명사를 수식하게 하고 과거 상황을 회상하거나 그 상황이 완료되지 않고 중단되었음을 나타내는 표현.

    It modifies nouns and is used in expressions to show reflection on the past or to show a situation that was uncompleted or discontinued in the past.


    The above definition is the same for both 던 and 았던. It also agrees with the definition in the dictionary published by the same institute. The meaning of 던 does not change whether it is added to a verb root or to -었, which suggests that -었 is superfluous (사족) to begin with.

    So, why should I believe someone who posts a definition that is different from the dictionary on the very site they are posting one? Moreover, even in her definition the writer misused -었던.

    Annonymous wrote:

    In 3) and 4), the verb 살다 is the case when 했던 and 던 has little difference in meaning. (The poster from 국립국어원 as well as I already pointed out that they can be used in the same meaning depending on the context.) So 었 in this case is redunduncy.

    했던 and 던 have "no" difference in meaning, not "little" difference in meaning. Anyway, it looks like you are finally starting to understand, whether you want to admit it or not.

    Anyway, I have wasted enough time on you, so have a happy life.

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  24. Sorry for my being testy, Anonymous. I am just a little irritable because I am having to prepare for some upcoming changes in my life.

    Take care.

    ReplyDelete
  25. So many issues and disagreements have come up in the comments to this post that I don't think it would be feasible, or useful, to try to address them or rehash them.

    I would like to throw out a few general points from my perspective, however, and will do it in two posts because of the space limit.

    First, there is nothing wrong with a society designating and maintaining a standard of usage for its written language. Most of us have a sense of the distinction between "good" and "poor" usage; partly this is what we learn in school when we learn the standard written language (which differs considerably from our spoken dialects); and our societies have self-appointed "usage experts" who write books or columns on what they believe is good usage. That is all fine. When we learn a foreign language, we want to learn both to speak colloquially and to write properly. So I have nothing against "prescriptive" descriptions of standard Korean, and I don't agree that anything you see any Korean write must by definition be correct or worth emulating.

    However, several additional things should be borne in mind:

    1) What is considered good usage is essentially arbitrary, and judgments change over time. It is futile and counter-productive to try to get an entire society to reverse its collective decision about what constitutes good usage.

    2) Language usage cannot be judged on an objective standard of rationality or logic. The rules of grammar are what they are: in some languages "double negatives" are the norm (cf. French), in others they are found only in non-standard dialects (cf. English). All languages have usages that are redundant and/or illogical. That's what makes language fun and interesting. Sometimes we can uncover the fascinating historical pathways that have led to these circumstances.

    3) You cannot judge the semantics and grammar of one language based on the categories of another. If two different sentences in Language A end up being translated identically into Language B, this does not mean that the two sentences "mean the same thing". They might differ in meaning in a way that is not easily captured in Language B.

    4) It is often the case that the precise semantics of a certain construction in a language is extremely complicated. In many cases linguists who have investigated these constructions for decades still disagree about the best way to define them with the most explanatory power. Explanations that are given for language learners or lay readers are necessarily over-simplified and less technical. Is it any wonder that dictionaries and grammar books, forced to define complicated linguistic structures in a sentence or two, will disagree? (As an example, try to work out comprehensive rules for when to use "a" vs. "the" in English. Talk to you in a few years.)

    5) Gerry has chosen one dictionary (국립국어원) and one person (이수열) whom he has decided are the ultimate authorities on the Korean language. That is Gerry's choice, but it is not at all clear why these should have more authority than anyone else. It seems to me that the best approach for a language learner is to read a wide range of opinions, keep an open mind, and match them against the real-world usage you see and hear around you, in order to decide which explanations can best account for the linguistic phenomena around you. (And, of course, write up your findings on your blog and invite discussion!)

    (to be continued)

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  26. 6) If you find yourself saying "A and B mean the same thing, so how can A be correct and B be incorrect?", perhaps the next thought should be "Perhaps A and B don't mean the same thing. There may be a difference here worth investigating." Subtle differences are not necessarily the same as BS!

    Based on what I've read, the usage of -던 is complicated in part because it does not recount objective facts but reflects subjective experience. This is why it is called the "retrospective marker". It embodies a constellation of meanings related to personal experience (which is why it is seldom used with 3rd-person subjects) and past action. When combined with the completed-action suffix -었/-았, distinctions involving completion, repetition, habit, etc. are also drawn in. Listing sentences in isolation, and labeling them correct or incorrect without reference to the context in which they are spoken or the cognitive state of the speaker, will fail to sufficiently account for all of these factors. I am sufficiently aware of these complications to know that I cannot complete my understanding of how 던 works by reading a two- or three-sentence explanation, and humble enough to know that whatever explanations I find that seem to work may need to be revised in future to fit the real-world data.

    The example I raised of "to die" was not meant to be in any way equivalent to the distinction between V-던 and V-었/았던. I was just trying to point out that you cannot understand the difference between "He died" and "He was dying" based on some sort of objective judgment of truth. The same exact physical event in the real world can be described using both phrasings:

    "He was on his deathbed for two weeks and then he died."
    "He was dying for two weeks."

    In some sense, they "mean the same thing". And yet, in some structures or contexts one is correct and one is not:

    "He died for two weeks."
    "He was dying for two weeks."
    "He was on his deathbed for two weeks and then he was dying."

    All three of these sentences could be "correct" or "incorrect" depending on how the situation is viewed and what the context is.

    One last example from English before I throw in the towel.

    Do "read" (in the past tense) and "used to read" mean the same thing? (We'll leave aside for now "have read", which brings in another host of interesting issues!) Consider the noun phrases

    1a) "the book I read in high school"
    1b) "the book I used to read in high school"

    Perhaps you would say that phrase (1a) means the book was read a single time, and that phrase (1b) means the book was read several times. Or, perhaps you would say that phrase (1a) means I finished the book, and phrase (1b) means I didn't finish it.
    These are subjective native-speaker judgments, and they are hard to credit. But the can be tested by exploring different contexts. So consider this:

    2a) "The book I read three times in high school."
    2b) *"The book I used to read three times in high school."

    or, if you like:

    3a) "Hey, I read that book three times in high school!"
    3b) *"Hey, I used to read that book three times in high school!"

    Native English speakers would agree that (2b) and (3b) are incorrect. But why? After all, "used to read" and "three times" should be compatible in the real world, as in:

    Person A: "I used to read that book in high school!"
    Person B: "Really? How many times did you read it?"
    Person A: "Three times."

    So why are (2b) and (3b) incorrect?

    (To be continued)

    ReplyDelete
  27. Let's make the examples even more extreme:

    5a) "I read that book a hundred times in high school."
    5b) *"I used to read that book a hundred times in high school."
    5c) "I used to read that book over and over in high school."

    It just won't do to say "But (5a) and (5b) mean the same thing! How can one be correct and one be wrong?" Well, in some sense they may mean the same thing, but linguistically they function differently. "Used to" in English cannot be used with a quantified number of iterations. (Even if by "over and over" I mean "a hundred times", that still won't make (5b) a correct sentence.) That's an important and interesting fact about English grammar that takes a lot of investigation to uncover. And you may not find it mentioned in a dictionary definition or grammar book for second-language learners.

    I am sure there are similarly interesting and subtle facts about the usage of V-(으)ㄴ, V-던, and V-었/았던 that can only be revealed through careful investigation. Don't get me wrong: I'm not by any means saying that these Korean structures match up precisely to any English structures like "used to"; rather, they need to be investigated on their own terms. This is what we should be trying to do, not arbitrarily deciding that every single native speaker of Korean alive today is failing to speak proper Korean. As second-language learners, our goal should be to master a language, not to regularize it according to our own standards.

    ReplyDelete
  28. I stumbled upon this barrage of comments when I was just curious about 했던...

    And now I see that we have a classic case of Prescriptive vs. Descriptive Grammar:

    Gerry claims that what Koreans are doing is "wrong", because there is a correct way to speak and an incorrect way to speak (prescriptive).

    While Lance and Anonymous simply describe what Koreans naturally do (descriptive).

    Any "confusion" amongst Korean native speakers is more likely due to a clash in PRESCRIPTIVE and DESCRIPTIVE viewpoints.

    Compare with English, as Anonymous did by using "were" and "was" where the subjunctive and simple past distinction has been neutralized.

    1a. I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Wiener.
    1b. I wish I was an Oscar Mayer Wiener.
    (I wonder if the older ones of us can remember these TV commercials)

    Prescriptive grammar would tell us that the majority of English speakers are wrong, confused, and are using "was" where they should be using "were".

    Descriptive grammar would tell us that in English it is acceptable to use either "was", or "were" in order to elicit the subjunctive mood, but that "were" will never be used in this case to elicit the plain past.

    If we subscribe to prescriptive grammar, we have no way to account for the fact that native speakers of English will interpret 1a & 1b with identical meaning, and 1b is simply ungrammatical.

    I wonder if the point is clear yet.

    ReplyDelete
  29. @Lance

    2a) "The book I read three times in high school."
    2b) *"The book I used to read three times in high school."

    or, if you like:

    3a) "Hey, I read that book three times in high school!"
    3b) *"Hey, I used to read that book three times in high school!"

    Native English speakers would agree that (2b) and (3b) are incorrect. But why?

    --------------------------------
    For (2b) and (3b), "used to" indicates unspecific past information. It is an inherently vague form and cannot be combined with the specific "times" an event occurred.
    --------------------------------

    After all, "used to read" and "three times" should be compatible in the real world, as in:

    Person A: "I used to read that book in high school!"
    Person B: "Really? How many times did you read it?"
    Person A: "Three times."

    -------------------------------
    The conversation is perfectly correct, but I don't understand how that supports your using the past participle with the simple past in the same sentence.
    --------------------------------

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  30. Thanks a lot Gerry! Your explanations helped me a lot with my college linguistic research on Korean grammar.

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  31. Gerry youre a retard who is just arguing for the sake of arguing. I have been living in korea for many years and not even koreans can tell the difference between 았/었던 and ㄴ/은 grammar patterns. In my opinion its better for a foreigner to make himself speak naturally and easily understood based on the general usage of various grammar points. Its ok that you like to sit in your man cave and memorize old grammar definitions but i dont see the point in harping on it this much just for the sake of showing off your intelligence and to confuse korean learners.

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  32. Yes, Mats, I like to argue, but not just for the sake of arguing, but rather for the sake of learning and understanding.

    You write that not even Koreans can tell the difference between the 았/었던 and ㄴ/은 grammar patterns, so are you saying that is a good thing? If they cannot tell the difference between the two forms, then why don't they just use ㄴ/은, the correct form?

    Mats wrote: "In my opinion its better for a foreigner to make himself speak naturally and easily understood based on the general usage of various grammar points."

    If a foreigner correctly uses 던 and ㄴ/은 instead of using the muddled hybrid 았/었던, he or she would be speaking naturally and would be better understood, whether you realize it or not.

    Koreans easily know the difference between 내가 본 사람 (the person I saw) and 내가 보던 사람 (the person I used to see) without needing to use any adverbs, but if you said 내가 보았던 사람, the meaning would be unclear to Koreans unless you used an adverb with it.

    Does "내가 보았던 사람" mean "the person I saw" or "the person I used to see"? Koreans would not know unless you put adverbs like 어제 or 옛날 in front of it:

    어제 내가 보았던 사람 - the person I saw yesterday

    옛날 내가 보았던 사람 - the person I used to see in the past

    So your suggestion that foreigners would be more easily understood if they also used the muddled 았/었던 form is incorrect.

    So you think my explaining the difference between ㄴ/은 and 던 is just my showing off and is confusing foreign learners of Korean?

    Well, I disagree. What I think confuses foreign learners of Korean is when Koreans say they don't know the difference between 았/었던 and ㄴ/은, as you have already acknowledged.

    Let's turn the tables. Do you think Americans would be more impressed with a Korean who comes to the United States and uses street English or one who comes and used grammatically English?

    Do you think Koreans studying in the United States would be satisfied if an American told them that "I didn't do nothing" and "I didn't do anything" means the same thing?

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    Replies
    1. Koreans wouldnt be able to tell the difference between 내가 본 사람 and 내가 봤던 사람. Not even my korean teachers could tell the difference. Im talking about 았/었던 and (ㄴ)은. Not 던.

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  33. Mats, are you retarded? I ask not because I think you are retarded, but because I want you to understand how it feels to be called retarded.

    Anyway, the reason your Korean teachers cannot tell the difference between 내가 본 사람 and 내가 봤던 사람 is that both are used both the same way. Haven't you been paying attention to what I have been writing?

    I have been trying to explain with my post and with my comments that many Koreans these days are using 았/었던 to replace both ㄴ/은 and 던. 았/었던 is a cheat for people who do not know the difference between ㄴ/은 and 던.

    지금 내가 하는 일 - work I'm doing now

    내일 내가 할 일 - work I will do tomorrow

    어제 내가 한 일 - work I did yesterday (I completed it.)

    어제 하던 일 - work I did yesterday (but did not complete)

    옛날 하던 일 - work I used to do in the past (but no longer do)

    한 is used for finished past action and 하던 is used for unfinished past action. 했던 is an abomination, a cheat used in place of both 한 and 하던 by people who either do not know how to or do not want to bother to distinguish between 한 and 하던.

    했던 is an unnecessary blemish on the Korean language. And if your teachers cannot tell the difference between 한 and 했던, then isn't that evidence that 했던 is unnecessary?

    Bad: 초등학교 시절에 읽었던 작품
    Good: 초등학교 시절에 읽은 작품
    A book [I] read in primary school)

    Bad: 자동차 없었던 시대
    Good: 자동차 없던 시대
    a time before automobiles

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  34. By the way, Mats, you wrote that your Korean language teachers could not tell any difference between 내가 본 사람 and 내가 봤던 사람, meaning they do not see any difference between ㄴ/은 and 았/었던.

    Now ask them if they can tell the difference between 자동차 없었던 시대 and 자동차 없던 시대. If they cannot tell the difference, then that means they also think 았/었던 and 던 mean the same thing.

    So, using a little logic, if 았/었던 and ㄴ/은 are the same and 았/었던 and 던 are the same, then that would mean ㄴ/은 and 던 are the same, which is not true.

    I would be interested to hear how your Korean language teachers explain that one.

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  35. Lance, I just now read some of the things you wrote above. It is late and I am tired, so I will just comment on one thing you wrote.

    Lance wrote:

    "He was dying for two weeks."

    How would you translate that into Korean, Lance?

    Just because a certain expression might be acceptable in English does not mean the same expression would be acceptable in Korean.

    One of the mistakes foreign learners of Korean make when speaking Korean is that they try to translate directly from English into Korean.

    Also, while translating English into Korean, Koreans sometimes use awkward Korean in an attempt to be a true to the English as possible. In fact, the creation of 었던 probably came about by Koreans trying to translate English "past perfect" (대과거) tense into Korean, something the Korean language did not have.

    Instead of saying "He was dying for two weeks," Koreans would say something similar to "He suffered for two weeks and died." For example, Korean might say something like the following:

    그는 이주일 동안 (불치병에) 고생하다가 죽었다.

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  36. Hi Gerry, I think it's been six years since we last discussed this!

    I agree fully with what you said:

    Just because a certain expression might be acceptable in English does not mean the same expression would be acceptable in Korean.

    One of the mistakes foreign learners of Korean make when speaking Korean is that they try to translate directly from English into Korean.

    Also, while translating English into Korean, Koreans sometimes use awkward Korean in an attempt to be a true to the English as possible. In fact, the creation of 었던 probably came about by Koreans trying to translate English "past perfect" (대과거) tense into Korean, something the Korean language did not have.


    In fact, this is precisely the point I was trying to make in some of my earlier posts. You argued that

    1a. 다니던 초등 학교 "the elementary school that I used to attend"

    1b. 다녔던 초등 학교 "the elementary school that I attended"

    couldn't possibly have different meanings in Korean because you couldn't detect a clear difference of meaning in the English translations. But some meaning distinctions in one language are not clearly translatable into another language. Grammatical structures do not align across the two languages.

    The only real way to figure out if these grammatical patterns have a real meaning difference is to collect a corpus of uses of Korean speakers and analyze them to see if they occur in different contexts are make different implications.

    Your idea that the Korean usage is an attempt to mimic the English past perfect is an interesting one. (You say "probably", so I assume that you don't have evidence.) That's a partially testable hypothesis. It should be possible to do some historical textual analysis to see how old the usage is and how it developed historically. But even if you are right, that doesn't mean that there isn't a real usage/meaning distinction today.

    I actually don't have an opinion one way or the other; my Korean isn't good enough. As a student of Korean language I learned from teachers and textbooks that there was a distinction, and the way that distinction was explained made sense to me. Whether in reality it correlates consistently with the usage of Koreans I can't say.

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  37. Can you translate "다녔던 초등 학교" into something like "The elementary school that I had attended" ?

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  38. Mr. Kim wrote: "Can you translate '다녔던 초등 학교' into something like 'The elementary school that I had attended'?"

    It depends on what you mean, Mr. Kim. Do you mean 다니던 초등학교 or "다닌 초등학교"?

    다니던 초등학교 is used when you are attending a different elementary school and are referring to your old elementary school, so it could be translated as "the elementary school I attended before this." Or you could say "my old elementary school" or "the elementary school I used to attend" if the context makes it clear that you are now attending a different elementary school.

    다닌 초등학교 is used after you have completed elementary school, so you can simply said "the elementary school I attended."

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  39. Lance,

    We still seem unable to understand each other. You wrote the following:

    In fact, this is precisely the point I was trying to make in some of my earlier posts. You argued that

    1a. 다니던 초등 학교 "the elementary school that I used to attend"

    1b. 다녔던 초등 학교 "the elementary school that I attended"

    couldn't possibly have different meanings in Korean because you couldn't detect a clear difference of meaning in the English translations.


    No, that was not what I was arguing, even though it may have seemed that way. I was trying to explain that instead of 다녔던 초등 학교, it should be either 다닌 초등학교 or 다니던 초등학교, depending the meaning you want to convey. 다닌 초등학교 means the elementary school I "attended and completed." 다니던 초등학교 means the elementary school I "attended, but did not complete." The English "attended" and "used to attend" do not really convey those meanings since we often use "used to attend" for "attended."

    My point was that 다녔던 is a "muddled hybrid" of 다닌 and 다니던. Above, Commenter Mats has already written that his "Korean" language teachers, even today, cannot tell the difference between 았/었던 and (ㄴ)은. Why? Because they are using the hybrid 았/었던 with the meaning of ㄴ/은.

    I am not making this argument based on my understanding of Korean, but on the understanding of native Korean Lee Su-yeol (이수열), who has written extensively on this and other mistakes Koreans make when speaking and using their language.

    Anyway, it is good to hear from you. I was wondering what had happened to you. I think my curt remarks and arrogance may have chased you off. During that time I was in a bad mood because I felt I was being unfairly treated by Koreans at work who did not like what I had written about the history of Ulleungdo and Dokdo.

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  40. Mr. Kim,

    I wanted to add that you should not be trying to write the Korean to match the English past perfect tense because past perfect is alien to Korean. Instead, Korean uses adverbs with the past tense to convey the past perfect meaning. According to 이수열, -ㅆ던, -았(었)던, -였던, -ㅆ었다, -았(었)다, and -었었다 were all created to imitate the past perfect tense in English and other Western languages. In fact, in my Dong-A 국어사전, the Korean word for past perfect, 대과거, is defined as follows:

    "(인도 유럽어 등에서) 과거에 있어서의 완료 (完了) 또는 계속을 나타내는 시제 (時制)"

    Notice that it says "Indo-European languages," not Korean. People may not even realize it, but Korean is easier to understand when it is spoken and written the way it was meant to be spoken and written.

    Here is an example of past perfect tense in English and my translation into Korean:

    "When her boyfriend called, she had already left."

    그 여자의 남자 친구가 전화했을 때 그 여자는 벌써 갔어요."

    See! There was no need to write 갔었어요 because the adverb 벌써 (already) tells us all we need to know. Koreans should be proud of the fact that their language is different from English and should be working to keep it that way.

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  41. Gerry,

    Oh no, you didn't chase me away. I know you enjoy spirited argumentation. It's just that I stopped reading the blog when the posts dwindled and eventually stopped. I took a look at the blog again recently on a whim, and was glad to see that you'd started posting again. I think your book project is really interesting. I wonder if anyone has tried similar projects for Japanese and Vietnamese; that is, teaching of Literary Chinese to English-speaking learners of those languages, using the local reading pronunciations instead of Mandarin.

    You are right, I didn't understand the main point of your argument, or possibly we both got side-tracked by side-arguments. I now understand from your last few comments to me and to others that the distinction between ㄴ/은 and 던 is not at issue; rather, your claim that "았/었던 is a cheat for people who do not know the difference between ㄴ/은 and 던" and that it is therefore incorrect or bad (I'm not sure if you distinguish those two) Korean.

    You have mentioned Lee Su-yeol (이수열)'s writings before as the basis for some of your posts. I haven't read him, so I can't speak with any authority. But from how you've described him, it sounds like his arguments are not necessarily based on sound linguistic analysis or language data, but on his own subjective impressions and esthetics, often in reference to Western (particularly English) grammatical categories. Perhaps this is a mis-characterization on my part.

    Being a native speaker is not necessarily a good qualification for being able to soundly analyze one's language. In the absence of some sort of training in linguistic analysis, native speakers actually tend to be terrible at figuring out grammatical patterns and meanings in their own language. Partly this is because they tend to think about isolated sentences and words rather than contexts.

    I'll give you an example. I often do an experiment where I ask students in my class whether there is any difference in meaning or usage between the simple past and the perfect, e.g. between "I ate lunch" and "I have eaten lunch". I let them brainstorm. Many say there is simply no difference, they are interchangeable. Some feel there is a difference in meaning but can't say what. Others try to articulate differences that turn out not to hold up to further analysis. (For example, it's easy to disprove the claim that one sentence describes an earlier event than another.)

    Some basic linguistic analysis can easily establish that there is a difference and can start to clarify the difference. For example, it is interesting to note that you can say "I ate lunch last Tuesday at a restaurant" but not *"I have eaten lunch last Tuesday at a restaurant". Or why you can say "After I ate lunch I went to a cafe" but not *"After I have eaten lunch I went to a cafe". Or why you can't say *"After I ate lunch I will go home" but you can say "After I have eaten lunch I will go home."

    If you spend about 20-30 minutes with students coming up with contrasting sentences like this, and thinking up natural contexts in which you would use one structure but not the other, then the students start to be able to home in on some key distinctions. This is what I mean by linguistic analysis.

    Of all the examples we have seen from you and other commenters concerning the use of "았/었던", none have taken this kind of approach. So it is very difficult to give the "evidence" much weight.

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  42. 지나가던 한국인입니다. (라고 말하며 이미 문제의 '던'을 사용했네요 ㅎㅎ)
    저는 이 문법적 문제에 대해 대답할 전문 지식도 없고, 또 그렇게 관심을 갖고 있지도 않습니다.
    그런데도 글을 남기는 이유는 게리씨와 랜스씨의 의견이 모두 흥미롭고 또 이 논쟁이 2009년부터 15년까지 지속되고 있다는 것에 감탄을 했기 때문입니다. 벌써 6년이 지난 지금 두 분의 한국어 실력도 얼마나 늘었을까 궁금하기도 합니다.

    그나저나 09년도에 저는 아마 뉴질랜드에 있었던 것 같은데.. 그때 먹었던 fish&chips가 그립네요!

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  43. Yun Puer,

    제 한국어 실력은 그 동안 늘어나지 않았을 거에요. 오 년 동안 한국에서 살지 않고 한국어를 공부하지 않고 말하지 않고 듣지도 않았어요. 한국어 문법에 대해서도 많이 잊어버렸어요. 예를 들면 이 화제에 대해서 다시 토론할려면 다시 공부해야겠어요. 앞으로는 한국어를 다시 공부하겠지만 지금 바빠서 못 해요.

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