LEARN KOREAN (한국어) [GRAMMAR] #1

ADDING ~ㄴ/은 TO ADJECTIVES

I mentioned this, but I would like to organize it all here. You learned how to add ~ㄴ/은 to adjectives to describe an upcoming noun. Some irregulars will come into play when doing this because of the possibility of adding a vowel to a stem. Let's look at the word "어렵다" as an example. 어렵다 has a consonant as its final letter, which means that ~은 must be added (instead of ~ㄴ). Therefore, we end up with:

어렵은

Because of this, we now have the final consonant "ㅂ" followed by a vowel, which causes the ㅂ irregular to be applied. The correct conjugation of 어렵다 + ~ㄴ/은 is therefore "어려운."

Below is a table that shows how irregular adjectives can change because of adding ~ㄴ/은:

Looking Ahead to Grammatical Principles that you will Learn in Future Lessons

There are many additions that you will learn in future lessons. You will learn the meaning and usage of all of these when they become important for your level of study. When you learn about a new addition, I will explain how it causes irregular words to change.

The good thing is – if you learn how one format of addition causes irregulars to change, every addition with the same initial letters will cause the same change. For example, adding ~아/어 causes ㅅ to be eliminated in words that follow the ㅅ irregular. Likewise, any other addition that starts with ~아/어 causes the same change. For example, if I add ~아/어 or ~았/었다 to 짓다, we see the same change to the word stem – that is 짓다 changes to 지어 and 지었다 respectively.

This same idea can be applied to grammatical additions that will be introduced later. For example, you will learn how ~(으)면 causes irregular words to change. The change that results from adding ~(으)면 is exactly the same as the change that results from adding similar additions like ~(으)며 and ~(으)면서. Therefore, you don't need to memorize how each one affects irregulars, but rather how the general format of adding ~(으)ㅁ... will affect irregulars. I know the road ahead to memorizing these new additions and their effects on irregulars looks daunting, but this grouping of formats will allow your brain to compartmentalize the information.

Each time a new format/style of addition is introduced, I will explain how irregulars adapt to it. This only needs to be done once for each format, because each successive addition with the same format will create the same change to irregulars. Below is a list of grammatical principles you will learn. Each one follows a particular style. In each of these lessons, I will explain how they cause irregular words to change. Furthermore, I will explain the other grammatical principles that follow the same format that will create the same change:

~ㄹ/을
~니
~ㅁ/음
~(으)려고
~(으)시다
~(으)면
~(으)니까