Korean Grammar Point
~์ง€๋งŒ [jimyeon] (But, however)

Used to express contrast or contradiction; 'but', 'however'.

Formation

Verb stem + ์ง€๋งŒ

Examples

์˜ค๋Š˜์˜ ๋‚ ์”จ๋Š” ํ๋ฆฌ์ง€๋งŒ, ๊ธฐ๋ถ„์€ ๋งค์šฐ ์ข‹์•„์š”.

Oneul-ui nalssineun heulijiman, gibuneun maeu joayo.

Even though today's weather is cloudy, I feel very good.

๊ทธ ์˜ํ™”๋Š” ์žฌ๋ฏธ์—†์—ˆ์ง€๋งŒ, ๊ทธ ๋ฐฐ์šฐ์˜ ์—ฐ๊ธฐ๋Š” ํ›Œ๋ฅญํ–ˆ์–ด์š”.

Geu yeonghwaneun jaemiopseotjiman, geu baeuui yeongineun hulryunghaesseoyo.

Although the movie wasn't interesting, the actor's performance was great.

๊ณ ๊ธฐ๋ฅผ ์ข‹์•„ํ•˜์ง€๋งŒ, ๊ฐ€๋” ๋น„๊ฑด ์Œ์‹์„ ๋จน์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค.

Gogireul johahajiman, gaggeum bigeon eumsigeul meogseumnida.

I like meat, but sometimes I eat vegan food.

์•„๋“ค์€ ์นœ์ ˆํ•˜์ง€๋งŒ, ๋•Œ๋•Œ๋กœ ์†Œ์‹ฌํ•ด์ง‘๋‹ˆ๋‹ค.

Adeureun chinjeolhajiman, ttaettaero sosimhaejibnida.

My son is kind, but sometimes he becomes timid.

Long Explanation

'~์ง€๋งŒ [jimyeon]' is a conjunction used in Korean to connect two clauses where the second clause presents a contrast or unexpected result compared to the first. It is similar to 'but' or 'however' in English.

Detailed Grammar Notes

Processing keyword: ~์ง€๋งŒ [jimyeon] (But, however)

Korean Grammar Point: ~์ง€๋งŒ [jimyeon] (But, however)

1. Introduction

In Korean, connecting contrasting ideas or statements is essential for expressing complex thoughts. The grammar point ~์ง€๋งŒ (~jiman) is commonly used to link two clauses where the second clause presents a contrast or exception to the first. It translates to "but" or "however" in English.


2. Core Grammar Explanation

Meaning

~์ง€๋งŒ is a conjunctive ending attached to verbs, adjectives, or nouns to express contrast between two clauses. It indicates that the second clause is in opposition or contrast to the first clause.

Structure

Formation Diagram

For Verbs and Adjectives:

[Verb/Adjective Stem] + ์ง€๋งŒ

For Nouns:

  • If the noun ends with a consonant:
    [Noun] + ์ด์ง€๋งŒ
    
  • If the noun ends with a vowel:
    [Noun] + ์ง€๋งŒ
    

How to Form ~์ง€๋งŒ

  1. Verbs and Adjectives:
    • Remove the dictionary ending ๋‹ค from the verb or adjective to get the stem.
    • Attach ์ง€๋งŒ directly to the stem. Example:
    • ๋จน๋‹ค (to eat)
      ๋จน๋‹ค โ†’ ๋จน + ์ง€๋งŒ โ†’ ๋จน์ง€๋งŒ (but eat)
      
    • ์˜ˆ์˜๋‹ค (to be pretty)
      ์˜ˆ์˜๋‹ค โ†’ ์˜ˆ์˜ + ์ง€๋งŒ โ†’ ์˜ˆ์˜์ง€๋งŒ (but [it is] pretty)
      
  2. Nouns:
    • If the noun ends with a consonant, add ์ด์ง€๋งŒ.
    • If the noun ends with a vowel, add ์ง€๋งŒ. Examples:
    • ํ•™์ƒ (student)
      ํ•™์ƒ + ์ด์ง€๋งŒ โ†’ ํ•™์ƒ์ด์ง€๋งŒ (but [I am] a student)
      
    • ์˜์‚ฌ (doctor)
      ์˜์‚ฌ + ์ง€๋งŒ โ†’ ์˜์‚ฌ์ง€๋งŒ (but [he is] a doctor)
      

Usage Notes

  • Tense is expressed in the second clause, not before ~์ง€๋งŒ. Example:
    • ์–ด์ œ ๋ฐ”๋นด์ง€๋งŒ ์˜ํ™” ๋ดค์–ด์š”.
      • Yesterday I was busy, but I watched a movie.

3. Comparative Analysis

~์ง€๋งŒ vs. ~๋Š”๋ฐ/์€๋ฐ

While ~์ง€๋งŒ explicitly denotes contrast similar to "but," ~๋Š”๋ฐ/์€๋ฐ can imply contrast, provide background information, or indicate a cause. Examples:

  1. ~์ง€๋งŒ (explicit contrast)
    • ๊ธฐ์˜์ง€๋งŒ ํ‘œํ˜„ํ•˜์ง€ ์•Š์•˜์–ด์š”.
      • I was happy, but I didn't express it.
  2. ~๋Š”๋ฐ/์€๋ฐ (contrast or background)
    • ๊ธฐ์œ๋ฐ ํ‘œํ˜„ํ•˜์ง€ ์•Š์•˜์–ด์š”.
      • I was happy, but I didn't express it. (Can also imply since or although)

~์ง€๋งŒ vs. ํ•˜์ง€๋งŒ

  • ~์ง€๋งŒ is attached to verbs, adjectives, or nouns to connect two clauses within a sentence.
  • ํ•˜์ง€๋งŒ is an adverb meaning "but" or "however" and often starts a new sentence. Examples:
  1. Using ~์ง€๋งŒ:
    • ๋น„๊ฐ€ ์˜ค์ง€๋งŒ ์ถ•๊ตฌ๋ฅผ ํ–ˆ์–ด์š”.
      • It was raining, but we played soccer.
  2. Using ํ•˜์ง€๋งŒ:
    • ๋น„๊ฐ€ ์™”์–ด์š”. ํ•˜์ง€๋งŒ ์ถ•๊ตฌ๋ฅผ ํ–ˆ์–ด์š”.
      • It was raining. However, we played soccer.

4. Examples in Context

Sentence Examples

  1. Formal Written
    • ๊ทธ๋Š” ์—ด์‹ฌํžˆ ๊ณต๋ถ€ํ–ˆ์ง€๋งŒ ์‹œํ—˜์— ๋–จ์–ด์กŒ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค.
      • He studied hard, but he failed the exam.
  2. Polite Spoken
    • ์ด ์ฑ…์€ ์–ด๋ ต์ง€๋งŒ ์žฌ๋ฏธ์žˆ์–ด์š”.
      • This book is difficult, but it's interesting.
  3. Informal Spoken
    • ๋ง›์žˆ์ง€๋งŒ ๋„ˆ๋ฌด ๋น„์‹ธ.
      • It's delicious, but it's too expensive.
  4. Formal Spoken
    • ์ฃ„์†กํ•˜์ง€๋งŒ ๊ธธ์„ ์•Œ๋ ค ์ฃผ์‹œ๊ฒ ์–ด์š”?
      • I'm sorry, but could you tell me the way?
  5. Casual Written
    • ์˜ํ™” ๋ดค์ง€๋งŒ ๊ธฐ๋Œ€๋งŒํผ ์ข‹์ง„ ์•Š์•˜์–ด.
      • I watched the movie, but it wasn't as good as I expected.

Dialogue Example

A: ํ•œ๊ตญ ์Œ์‹ ์ข‹์•„ํ•ด์š”? B: ์ข‹์•„ํ•˜์ง€๋งŒ ๋งค์šด ์Œ์‹์€ ๋ชป ๋จน์–ด์š”.

  • A: Do you like Korean food?
  • B: I like it, but I can't eat spicy food.

5. Cultural Notes

Politeness and Formality

  • The use of ~์ง€๋งŒ itself does not carry a level of politeness; politeness is conveyed through verb endings in the sentence.
  • Adding ์ฃ„์†กํ•˜์ง€๋งŒ or ๋ฏธ์•ˆํ•˜์ง€๋งŒ at the beginning of a request adds politeness and softens the request. Example:
    • ์ฃ„์†กํ•˜์ง€๋งŒ ์ฐฝ๋ฌธ์„ ๋‹ซ์•„ ์ฃผ์‹œ๊ฒ ์–ด์š”?
      • I'm sorry, but could you close the window?

Idiomatic Expressions

  • ์•„์‰ฝ์ง€๋งŒ: "It's a shame, but..."
    • ์•„์‰ฝ์ง€๋งŒ ๋‹ค์Œ์— ๋งŒ๋‚˜์š”.
      • It's a shame, but let's meet next time.

6. Common Mistakes and Tips

Common Mistakes

  1. Attaching Tense Markers Before ~์ง€๋งŒ
    • Incorrect: ๋จน์—ˆ์ง€๋งŒ๋‹ค, ์˜ˆ๋ปค์ง€๋งŒ๋‹ค
    • Correct: ๋จน์—ˆ์ง€๋งŒ, ์˜ˆ๋ปค์ง€๋งŒ Tense markers like ์•˜/์—ˆ are placed before ~์ง€๋งŒ, but do not add ๋‹ค after ~์ง€๋งŒ.
  2. Using ~์ง€๋งŒ with a Conjugated Verb
    • Incorrect: ๊ฐ‘๋‹ˆ๋‹ค์ง€๋งŒ, ๊ณต๋ถ€ํ•ด์š”์ง€๋งŒ
    • Correct: ๊ฐ€์ง€๋งŒ, ๊ณต๋ถ€ํ•˜์ง€๋งŒ Attach ~์ง€๋งŒ directly to the stem, not to the conjugated form.

Tips

  • Focus on the Verb/Adjective Stem: Always attach ~์ง€๋งŒ to the base form of the verb or adjective.
  • Remember the Noun Exception: Use ์ด์ง€๋งŒ after nouns ending with consonants, and ์ง€๋งŒ after vowels.
  • Politeness Comes Later: Adjust the level of politeness with the sentence-ending verb, not with ~์ง€๋งŒ.

7. Summary and Review

Key Takeaways

  • ~์ง€๋งŒ is used to express contrast, meaning "but" or "however."
  • Attach ~์ง€๋งŒ directly to verb and adjective stems.
  • For nouns, use ์ด์ง€๋งŒ after consonants and ์ง€๋งŒ after vowels.
  • Tense and politeness are indicated in the second clause, not with ~์ง€๋งŒ.

Quick Recap Quiz

  1. Fill in the blank:
    • ๋ฐ”์˜___ ๋„์™€์ค„๊ฒŒ์š”.
    • Answer: ๋ฐ”์˜์ง€๋งŒ ๋„์™€์ค„๊ฒŒ์š”. (I'm busy, but I will help you.)
  2. Choose the correct option: How do you say "It's small but convenient" in Korean? a) ์ž‘์ด์ง€๋งŒ ํŽธ๋ฆฌํ•ด์š”. b) ์ž‘์ง€๋งŒ ํŽธ๋ฆฌํ•ด์š”. c) ์ž‘์€์ง€๋งŒ ํŽธ๋ฆฌํ•ด์š”.
    • Answer: b) ์ž‘์ง€๋งŒ ํŽธ๋ฆฌํ•ด์š”.
  3. True or False: You should add tense markers like ์•˜/์—ˆ after ~์ง€๋งŒ.
    • Answer: False. Tense markers are placed before ~์ง€๋งŒ, and the second clause shows the tense.

By understanding and practicing the use of ~์ง€๋งŒ, you can effectively express contrasting ideas in Korean, enhancing both your written and spoken communication skills.


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