Friday, June 17, 2016

What does 行將 (행장) mean?

On Page 25 of "Du's Handbook of Classical Chinese Grammar," the following sentence appeared:
李(이)氏(씨)行(행)將(장)歸(귀)盍(합)姑(고)待(대)之(지)
Mr. Lee (李氏) soon (行) will (將) return (歸). Why not (盍), for awhile (姑), wait for (待) him (之)?
行, by itself, can be used as an adverb meaning "soon" or "before long," and 將 can be used as an auxiliary verb meaning "will," so 行將 translates as "will soon." The Korean equivalent is 곧. Notice that the adverb (行) comes before both the auxilliary verb (將) and the main verb (歸).
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2 comments:

  1. UnknownJune 26, 2016 at 11:03:00 PM CDT

    안녕하세요. 우연히 이 사이트를 발견해 오랜 시간 동안 읽어본 결과 한국어를 오랜 시간 동안 공부하시는 것이 정말 보기 좋습니다. 한국어가 배우기 쉽지 않으실텐데 대단하신것 같습니다.
    Hello. I coincidentally found this site and I have read over a lot of your posts. I really like your dedication to studying Korean, which is a fairly complex language. I just you to know that someone is reading this wonderful blog.

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