LEARN KOREAN (한국어) [GRAMMAR] #1

KOREAN PASSIVE VERBS - 내다 AND 나다

There are quite a few words in Korean that can either end in 나다 or 내다.

These two play the same role as 되다 and 하다, where a word ending in 나다 is passive and a word ending in 내다 is active. For example:

끝내다 - to finish
끝나다 - to be finished

나다 and 내다 can actually be used as standalone verbs as well as be attached to other words. Both of their meanings are very complex and depend heavily on the situation, but their general meanings are:

나다 - for something to come up/arise/occur
내다 - to make something come up/arise/occur

However, not all words ending in 나다 have an equivalent 내다 verb (and vice-versa). For example, 어긋나다 is a word (to be out of step with something) but 어긋내다 is not a word. At any rate, the two most common words ending in 나다/내다 are:

끝내다 - to finish
끝나다 - to be finished

고장 내다 - to break
고장 나다 - to be broken

It is very common to use the past tense conjugation of both of these words in the passive voice even when the thing is currently broken/finished. In English, we would say these sentences in the present tense, but in theory the thing/task was broken/finished in the past. For example:

숙제는 끝났어요 - My homework is finished
컴퓨터는 고장 났어요 - The computer is broken

It is possible to use the active voice to express these sentences, but the use of "나다" (as seen above) is more common than the use of 내다 in these cases. Nonetheless, the following are acceptable:

저는 숙제를 끝냈어요 - I finished my homework
저는 컴퓨터를 고장냈어요 - I broke the computer

As I said before, 나다 itself means "for something to come up/arise/occur" which means it can be used in a lot of sentences to indicate that some noun "comes up". Three common ways to use 나다 are with 기억 (a memory) with 생각 (a thought) and with 냄새 (a smell):

아! 그것이* 기억났다! - Ah! I remember that! (Literally – my memory came up)
좋은 생각이* 났어요! - I have a good idea (Literally – a good idea came up)
그 가방에서 냄새가 났어요 - That bag is smelly (A smell is coming out of that bag)

*Remember that 나다 is a passive verb and cannot act on an object. Therefore, the particle ~이/가 must be used on "것." You will learn more about this sentence structure.

Another common example of "나다" in use is in the following phrase:

큰 일 났어요!

Literally, this translates to "a big thing/task/work came up!" In Korean, this expression is used similar to the expression "Oh no! Something bad just happened!" A more common expression would probably be "Oh crap!"

You will see "나다" used with many other words throughout your Korean studies. The most common examples of 나다 (or it's active 내다 form) are the examples above. Other common examples that you will learn shortly are provided below. I am simply introducing them to you at this point because they are related to this topic.

소리 - sound
소리가 나다 - the verb of a sound happening (for a sound to "come up")

화 - anger, rage
화가 나다 - to be angry (for anger to "come up")

사고 - accident
사고가 나다 - to get into an accident (for an accident to "arise")

땀 - sweat
땀이 나다 - to be sweating (for sweat to "come up")

전쟁 - war
전쟁이 나다 - for a war to start (for a war to "come up")

멀미 - motion sickness
멀미가 나다 - for motion sickness to "come up"

In a lot of these cases, you will see 나다 conjugated into the past tense when we as English speakers would think of the situation in the present tense. To explain this phenomenon, let me bring up an example from before:

아! 그것이 기억났다! - Ah! I remember that!

Notice here that 나다 is conjugated to the past but I have translated the English sentence into the present tense. If you imagine your memory as a thing that can "come up," in theory, the memory had already came up before you said that sentence – therefore making it in the past tense. Here, the context of the conversation can inform you if the speaker is referring to something in the past or present tense.

It is possible to use these words in the present tense, but that would mean that the noun is currently coming up. A good example from that list above would be:

땀이 났어요 - I'm sweating

Here again, you can see 나다 conjugated to the past tense but the English sentence is translated into the present tense. Just by the nature of the word "나다" (to come out) in Korean, when sweat has "come out" of your body it means that you now have sweat on your body which we as English speakers would say as "I'm sweating."

When 나다 is conjugating into the present tense in these cases, it insinuates that the thing is currently "coming up." In most situations, the difference is negligible and distinguishing them would really be splitting hairs.

However, let's split some hairs:

땀이 났어요 - Sweat was coming out of my body... which means that there is currently sweat on my body... which means that I am wet from the sweat on my body that had previously come out of my body.

땀이 나요 - Sweat is literally currently coming out of my body

저는 그것이 기억 났어요 - I remembered that... which means that I also currently remember that fact... which means that I know that fact that I had previously remembered

저는 그것이 기억 나요 - That memory is literally currently just coming to my mind

Really, this whole past/present thing is quite advanced and is not something I developed an understanding of until many years of exposure to Korean. As a beginner you probably don't need to worry about splitting these hairs. However, when I was learning, I would have wanted this to be explained to me at some point, so here I am explaining it to you.

I should point out that we don't see this same phenomenon when these words are used in negative sentences. For example, if I say:

그것이 기억 안 났어

Does the fact of your memory "not coming up" mean that it is currently not up when you said the sentence? Huh.... I can't even wrap my head around that sentence.

This type of past-tense-conjugated negative sentence with 나다 would only be used to say that you didn't remember something sometime in the past. If you want to say that you cannot currently remember something, you can use the present tense conjugation. For example:

나는 그때 기억이 안 났어 - I didn't remember (that) at that time
나는 그것이 기억 안 나 - I don't remember that