LEARN KOREAN (한국어) [GRAMMAR] #1

SUBJECT-OBJECT-ADJECTIVE FORM

One of the basic fundamentals of grammar (not just Korean grammar) is that an adjective cannot act on an object. This means in Korean you can never have a sentence predicated by an adjective that is acting on a word with the object particle ~를/을. This means that you cannot say this:

저는 김치를 좋다 - I kimchi good
(this doesn't make sense in either language)

But, you can say any of these:

저는 김치를 먹었어요 - I ate kimchi
An object predicated by a verb

김치가 좋아요 - kimchi is good
A subject predicated by an adjective

저는 좋은 김치를 먹었어요 - I ate good kimchi
An object being described by an adjective predicated by a verb

That being said, sometimes, Korean people actually DO make sentences that are predicated by adjectives and also have an "object." Remember though, you cannot (100% cannot) use an adjective to act on an object. So how do Korean people say this? They do so by adding ~이/가 to the object instead of ~을/를. This technically makes the grammar within the sentence correct because there is not an adjective acting on an object. Take a look at the example:

김치는 좋아요 - Kimchi is good
저는 김치를 좋아해요 - I like kimchi, which can also be said like this
저는 김치가 좋아요 - I like kimchi

What I am trying to get at here – is that often times in Korean there is an adjective or passive verb that acts on objects. However, these adjective/passive verbs must (of course) always be treated as an adjective or passive verb.

Adjectives and passive verbs can never act on objects, so instead of using ~를/을 in these situations, you have to use ~이/가. Another example where this is commonly done is with 그립다:

그립다 - this word is translated as "to miss," but is usually used when talking about missing a non-person (it is sometimes used to say that you miss a person, but we will talk about how to say you miss a person later).

그립다 is an adjective in Korean (because it actually describes the feeling rather than an action verb). This means that if you want to say "I miss Korean food" you cannot say:

저는 한국 음식을 그리워요. Instead, you must say:
저는 한국 음식이 그리워요 - I miss Korean food

More examples. Notice that the predicating word of each sentence in an adjective:

나는 네가 자랑스러워 - I am proud of you
나는 그 사람이 싫어 - I don't like that person
저는 한국이 좋아요 - I like Korea

You also saw this same phenomenon in the previous lesson with passive verbs. Remember, you cannot have a passive verb act on an object. Therefore, we saw the following types of examples in the previous lesson:

저는 그것이 기억나요! - I remember that!
저는 땀이 나요! - I'm sweating!
저는 화가 났어요 - I was/I am angry