Korean Grammar Point
~๋“ ์ง€ [deunji] (Whether or)

Used to express indecision between two or more options; 'whether or'.

Formation

Noun/V-์•„/์–ด/์—ฌ + ๋“ ์ง€ + Noun/V-์•„/์–ด/์—ฌ + ๋“ ์ง€

Examples

๋‹น์‹ ์ด ๋“ค์–ด์˜ค๋“ ์ง€ ๋‚˜๊ฐ€๋“ ์ง€ ์ €๋Š” ์ƒ๊ด€ํ•˜์ง€ ์•Š์•„์š”, ์ค‘์š”ํ•œ ๊ฒƒ์€ ์ž‘์—…์ด ๊ณ„์†๋˜์–ด์•ผ ํ•œ๋‹ค๋Š” ๊ฒƒ์ž…๋‹ˆ๋‹ค.

Dangsini deureodeunji nagadeunji jeoneun sanggwanhaji anhayo, jungyohan geos-eun jageobi gyesogdoeya handaneun geosibnida.

Whether you come in or go out, I donโ€™t care; whatโ€™s important is that the work must continue.

๋น„๊ฐ€ ์˜ค๋“ ์ง€ ๋ง‘์€ ๋‚ ์ด๋“ ์ง€ ์ €๋Š” ํ•ญ์ƒ ์‚ฐ์ฑ…ํ•˜๋Ÿฌ ๋‚˜๊ฐ‘๋‹ˆ๋‹ค.

Biga odeunji malgeun narideunji jeoneun hangsang sanchaekhareo nagamnida.

Whether itโ€™s raining or a clear day, I always go out for a walk.

๋‹น์‹ ์ด ์ดํ•ดํ•˜๋“ ์ง€ ๋ชปํ•˜๋“ ์ง€ ์ €๋Š” ๊ณ„์† ์„ค๋ช…ํ•˜๊ฒ ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค.

Dangsini ihaehadeonji mothadeonji, jeoneun gyesok seolmyeonghagessseubnida.

Whether you understand or not, I will keep explaining.

๊ฐ•์•„์ง€๊ฐ€ ์ง–๋“ ์ง€ ์•ˆ ์ง–๋“ ์ง€, ๋งˆ์น˜ ๋Œ€ํ™”๋ฅผ ๋‚˜๋ˆ„๋Š” ๊ฒƒ์ฒ˜๋Ÿผ ์ธ์‚ฌํ•˜๋Š” ๊ฒƒ์ด ์ข‹์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค.

Gang-ajiga jijdeunji an jijdeunji, machi daehwareul nanuneun geoscheoreom insahaneun geosi johseubnida.

Whether the dog barks or not, itโ€™s nice to greet it as if you were having a conversation.

Long Explanation

The conjunction '~๋“ ์ง€' is used to indicate that any of the given alternatives is acceptable or that the speaker is indifferent about the choice. It is often used to show that no matter which option is chosen, the outcome will be similar.

Detailed Grammar Notes

Processing keyword: ~๋“ ์ง€ [deunji] (Whether or)

Korean Grammar Point: ~๋“ ์ง€ [deunji] (Whether or)

1. Introduction

In this lesson, we will explore the Korean grammar point ~๋“ ์ง€ ([deunji]) which translates to "whether... or" in English. This grammar structure is used to present options or possibilities and is commonly used in everyday Korean conversations.


2. Core Grammar Explanation

Meaning

~๋“ ์ง€ is used to:

  • Indicate that any option among the listed ones is acceptable.
  • Express possibilities or alternatives.
  • Emphasize that it doesn't matter which option is chosen. It is similar to saying "whether A or B" or "no matter if A or B" in English.

Structure

The structure of ~๋“ ์ง€ varies depending on whether it is attached to verbs, adjectives, or nouns.

Formation

  1. With Verbs and Adjectives:
    • Verb/Adjective Stem + ~๋“ ์ง€
    • Example: ๊ฐ€๋‹ค (to go) โ†’ ๊ฐ€๋“ ์ง€
  2. With Nouns:
    • Noun + (์ด)๋“ ์ง€
      • If the noun ends with a consonant: ์ด๋“ ์ง€
      • If the noun ends with a vowel: ๋“ ์ง€
    • Example: ํ•™์ƒ (student) โ†’ ํ•™์ƒ์ด๋“ ์ง€

Formation Diagram

Part of Speech Ending Example Stem Combined Form
Verb/Adjective ~๋“ ์ง€ ๋จน ๋จน๋“ ์ง€
Noun (consonant ending) (์ด)๋“ ์ง€ ์ฑ… ์ฑ…์ด๋“ ์ง€
Noun (vowel ending) ๋“ ์ง€ ๋ฌผ ๋ฌผ๋“ ์ง€

3. Comparative Analysis

Comparison with ~๊ฑฐ๋‚˜

  • ~๊ฑฐ๋‚˜ also means "or" and is used to list alternatives.
  • Difference:
    • ~๊ฑฐ๋‚˜ is used to connect two actions or states equivalently.
      • Example: ๋จน๊ฑฐ๋‚˜ ๋งˆ์‹œ๋‹ค (eat or drink)
    • ~๋“ ์ง€ can convey that any of the options is acceptable or that it doesn't matter.
      • Example: ๋จน๋“ ์ง€ ๋งˆ์‹œ๋“ ์ง€ ํ•˜์„ธ์š”. (Whether you eat or drink, do as you like.)

4. Examples in Context

Example Sentences

  1. Formal Polite (์กด๋Œ“๋ง)
    • ํ•œ๊ตญ์–ด๋ฅผ ๋ฐฐ์šฐ๋“ ์ง€ ์ผ๋ณธ์–ด๋ฅผ ๋ฐฐ์šฐ๋“ ์ง€ ๋„์›€์ด ๋  ๊ฑฐ์˜ˆ์š”.
      • Hangugeoreul baeudeunji ilboneoreul baeudeunji doumi doel geoyeyo.
      • Whether you learn Korean or Japanese, it will be helpful.
  2. Casual Speech (๋ฐ˜๋ง)
    • ๋„ค๊ฐ€ ๊ฐ€๋“ ์ง€ ๋ง๋“ ์ง€ ์ƒ๊ด€์—†์–ด.
      • Nega gadeunji maldeunji sanggwaneopseo.
      • Whether you go or not, I don't care.
  3. Written Formal
    • ๋น„๊ฐ€ ์˜ค๋“ ์ง€ ๋ˆˆ์ด ์˜ค๋“ ์ง€ ํ–‰์‚ฌ๋Š” ์ง„ํ–‰๋ฉ๋‹ˆ๋‹ค.
      • Biga odeunji nuni odeunji haengsaneun jinaengdoemnida.
      • Whether it rains or snows, the event will proceed.
  4. Imperative Sentence
    • ์˜ค๋“ ์ง€ ๋ง๋“ ์ง€ ๋นจ๋ฆฌ ๊ฒฐ์ •ํ•˜์„ธ์š”.
      • Odeunji maldeunji ppalli gyeoljeonghaseyo.
      • Decide quickly whether you'll come or not.
  5. Expressing Unlimited Options
    • ํ•„์š”ํ•œ ๊ฑฐ ์žˆ์œผ๋ฉด ์–ธ์ œ๋“ ์ง€ ๋ง์”€ํ•˜์„ธ์š”.
      • Piryohan geo isseumyeon eonjedeunji malsseumhaseyo.
      • If you need anything, please say so anytime.

5. Cultural Notes

Cultural Relevance

In Korean culture, indirectness is often preferred over direct statements. Using ~๋“ ์ง€ allows the speaker to present options without imposing a choice, respecting the listener's autonomy.

Politeness and Formality

  • The level of politeness is determined by the verb endings that follow ~๋“ ์ง€.
  • Combining ~๋“ ์ง€ with honorific endings shows respect.

Idiomatic Expressions

  • ์–ธ์ œ๋“ ์ง€ - anytime
  • ์–ด๋””๋“ ์ง€ - anywhere
  • ๋ฌด์—‡์ด๋“ ์ง€ - anything
  • ๋ˆ„๊ตฌ๋“ ์ง€ - anyone These expressions are commonly used in daily conversations.

6. Common Mistakes and Tips

Error Analysis

  1. Mixing with ~๊ฑฐ๋‚˜ Incorrectly
    • Incorrect: ์‹œ๊ฐ„์ด ์žˆ๊ฑฐ๋‚˜ ์—†๊ฑฐ๋‚˜ ์—ฐ๋ฝ์ฃผ์„ธ์š”.
    • Correct: ์‹œ๊ฐ„์ด ์žˆ๋“ ์ง€ ์—†๋“ ์ง€ ์—ฐ๋ฝ์ฃผ์„ธ์š”.
    • Whether you have time or not, please contact me.
  2. Incorrect Noun Attachment
    • Incorrect: ํ•™์ƒ๋“ ์ง€ ์„ ์ƒ๋‹˜๋“ ์ง€ ์˜ฌ ์ˆ˜ ์žˆ์–ด์š”.
    • Correct: ํ•™์ƒ์ด๋“ ์ง€ ์„ ์ƒ๋‹˜์ด๋“ ์ง€ ์˜ฌ ์ˆ˜ ์žˆ์–ด์š”.
    • Remember to add ์ด๋“ ์ง€ after nouns ending with a consonant.

Learning Strategies

  • Mnemonic Device: Think of ~๋“ ์ง€ as "doesn't matter which one"; both options "doonjee" (rhymes with "dun gee") are acceptable.
  • Practice: Create sentences using ์–ธ์ œ๋“ ์ง€, ์–ด๋””๋“ ์ง€, ๋ฌด์—‡์ด๋“ ์ง€, ๋ˆ„๊ตฌ๋“ ์ง€ to become familiar with common expressions.

7. Summary and Review

Key Takeaways

  • ~๋“ ์ง€ is used to present options or possibilities, meaning "whether... or" or "no matter if... or".
  • It can be attached to verbs, adjectives, and nouns (with proper endings).
  • It emphasizes that any option is acceptable or that it doesn't matter which one is chosen.
  • Commonly used idiomatic expressions with ~๋“ ์ง€ include ์–ธ์ œ๋“ ์ง€, ์–ด๋””๋“ ์ง€, ๋ฌด์—‡์ด๋“ ์ง€, ๋ˆ„๊ตฌ๋“ ์ง€.

Quick Recap Quiz

  1. How do you attach ~๋“ ์ง€ to nouns ending with a consonant?
    • Answer: Add ์ด๋“ ์ง€ after the noun.
  2. Translate the following sentence:
    • ๋ฌด์—‡์„ ๋จน๋“ ์ง€ ๋ง›์žˆ์„ ๊ฑฐ์˜ˆ์š”.
      • Answer: Whatever you eat, it will be delicious.
  3. What is the difference between ~๊ฑฐ๋‚˜ and ~๋“ ์ง€?
    • Answer: ~๊ฑฐ๋‚˜ simply lists alternatives, while ~๋“ ์ง€ emphasizes that any option is acceptable or that it doesn't matter which is chosen.

Feel free to revisit this lesson and practice using ~๋“ ์ง€ in your own sentences to become more comfortable with this grammar point!


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