LEARN KOREAN (한국어) [GRAMMAR] #1

USING 아/어서

Another way to indicate that one action happens after another action is to attach ~아/어서 to the verb in the first clause. The verb before ~아/어서 is never conjugated to the past tense. For example:

저는 당근을 칼로 잘라서 냉장고에 넣었어요 - I cut carrots with a knife and then put them into the fridge

You must be thinking, then: "What is the difference between using ~고 and using ~아/어서." For example:

저는 당근을 칼로 잘라서 냉장고에 넣었어요 - I cut the carrots with the knife then put them in the fridge
저는 당근을 칼로 자르고 냉장고에 넣었어요 - I cut the carrots with the knife then put them in the fridge

Both sentences are effectively saying the same thing.

However, from my experience ~아/어서 is more likely to be used when the action of the first clause is intrinsically linked with the action of the second clause.

The best way to explain this is to look at why specifically ~아/어서 is more commonly used with the verbs 가다 and 오다 instead of ~고.

If you want to say that you go somewhere then do something, you should not say this:

저는 학교에 가고 공부할 거예요

Instead of ~고, you must add ~아/어서 here:

저는 학교에 가서 공부할 거예요 - I will go to school and then study

Likewise, if you want to say that you come somewhere and do something, you should not say this:

우리는 집에 오고 바로 잤어요

Instead of ~고, you must add ~아/어서 here:

우리는 집에 와서 바로 잤어요 - We came home and went to sleep immediately

The reason for this is simply due to the nature of the verbs 오다 and 가다. When connecting two clauses with ~고 containing other verbs, (for example: 먹다), the first and second action, despite the fact that one happened before the other one, have no real connection. For example, in an example I presented previously:

저는 밥을 먹고 갈 거예요 - I will eat and then go

This sentence is implying that you will eat, and then finish eating, and then go somewhere. Aside from the fact that one happened after another, the act of eating didn't affect the act of going.

However, with "가다" and "오다," the fact that you are "coming" or "going" is directly connected to the next action, in that, in order to do the second action, you needed to have gone somewhere or came from somewhere.

I drew a picture to express the image that I have in my brain about this explanation.

When you use 가서 ... 먹다, the verb of "going" leads up to the verb of "eating." However, when you use 먹고 ... 가다, even though the verb of "eating" happened before the verb of "going," they aren't related to each other.

In this same sense, it is possible to attach ~아/어서 to verbs other than 가다 or 오다 to connect two clauses. Below are some examples that show this being done:

우리는 맛있는 고기를 골라서 같이 먹었어요 - We chose delicious meat then ate together
문을 열어서 밖으로 나갔어요 - I opened the door and then went outside

While it is very important to know how to use "~고", and how to use "~아/어서" with "가다/오다" at this point, being able to fully understand the nuance of adding "~아/어서" to other words is beyond your current ability. The usage of ~아/어서 is much more complex, and I will continue to discuss its usage later. Also note that the sentence connector ~아/어서 has another meaning.

It is possible to connect ~고 to "가다" and "오다", but only in situations where the speaker is connecting sentences that have a similar idea, and not where one goes/comes to a place and does something.

For example, I was in my office today and one of my coworkers was telling a current student about all the former students who came to visit him the day earlier (it was Teacher's Day). He said:

혜원도 오고... 슬기도 오고... 승하도 오고... 지혜도 오고... - 혜원 came, 슬기 came, 승하 came, 지혜 came, ...