Friday, July 27, 2018

내일 또 볼 수 있다? 내일 또 볼 수 있겠다?

HERE, a KBS News report talks about a blood moon and a total lunar eclipse. One thing I find strange about the report is that it is not using -겠- where I would expect to see it, as in the following example:
개기월식을 내일 새벽 또 볼 수 있습니다.
You can see the full lunar eclipse again at dawn tomorrow.
Since the above sentence is talking about the future (at dawn tomorrow), I would expect the Korean sentence to read as follows:
개기월식을 내일 새벽 또 볼 수 있습니다.
You will be able to see the full lunar eclipse again at dawn tomorrow.
I left Korea eight years ago and am forgetting things, but it seems Koreans have changed their style of speech if the above sentence in the news report is correct. Here is the way I remember learning the tenses:

  • 개기월식을 어제 또 볼 수 있었다.
    You were able to see the total lunar eclipse again yesterday.
  • 개기월식을 오늘 또 볼 수 있다.
    You can see the total lunar eclipse again today.
  • 개기월식을 내일 또 볼 수 있겠다.
    You will be able to see the total lunar eclipse again tomorrow.
From what I remember, you can use present tense to talk about future events the speaker has scheduled. For example, 내일 오후에 부산에 갑니다 (Tomorrow I am going to Busan). But in the above sentence from the KBS report, YOU, the subject, have not scheduled the event.

Am I missing something? It has been eight years since I left Korea. Does it become some kind of habit because they use 또?

The KBS news report does the same thing in the following sentences, where there are no 또's:
  • 다음날 새벽 3시 24분부터 달이 지 5시 37분까지 약 1시간 40분 동안 개기월식이 진행됩니다.
    The next day, from 3:24 a.m. until the moon sets at 5:37 a.m., about an hour and forty minutes, the total eclipse is in progress.
  • 특히 31일 화성과 지구가 5,700만 km로 매우 가까워지는 화성대접근이 일어납니다.
    On the 31st, especially, the Mars Close Approach occurs when the Earth and Mars are at their closest at 57 million kilometers.
  • 가장 멀 때보다 거리는 1/7로 준 대신, 크기는 7배가 커지고 16배 밝아집니다.
    From when it is farthest away, the distance is 1/7th less; it is 7 times bigger and 16 times brighter.
The KBS reporter seems to be using present tense to describe the actions and events because he or she wants to treat them as regularly occurring events. For example, "The sun rises in the east" (해가 동쪽에서 든다) is a regular occurring event, so the present tense is used instead of the future tense, but when you use words like 내일 (tomorrow), you are no longer talking about something as a regular occurring event. How can you see a total eclipse tomorrow on a regular basis? It will only occur tomorrow, not the next tomorrow.

Fortunately, the astronomer quoted in the article does use the future tense to describe the event:
 "남동쪽 하늘에서 밤 10시쯤에 관측 가능한 붉게 빛나는 천체가 화성이 되겠습니다."
"The reddish heavenly body in the southeast sky at about 10 o'clock at night will be Mars."
By the way, 개기월식 (皆旣月蝕) literally means "All (皆旣) the moon (月) has been nibbled away (蝕)."

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