Bi-Weekly Learning Journal #6

[Raymond Luo]

For the class on April 7th, together with my partner, we discussed deeply about different tenses for verb. It is good to know that there are actually formulas to follow when changing tenses for verbs to fit in different contents. Regarding the present tense:
1. When the last syllable of the stem ends in a consonant, you add ~는다 to the stem of
the word
a. 먹다 = 먹 + 는다 = 먹는다
b. 닫다 = 닫는다

2. When the last syllable of the stem ends in a vowel, you add ~ㄴ to the last syllable
followed by 다
a. 배우다 = 배운다
b. 이해하다 = 이해한다
c. 가다= 간다

And the example could be:

나는 친구를 (만나다)  만난다.

Here, 만나다 is the verb means "meet", and to change the verb into the present tense, we go with the formula in 2 because the last syllable ends in a vowel. Therefore, according to the formula, 만나 + ㄴ= 만난, we get  the answer is 만난다, meaning I'm meeting a friend.

There are plenty of formulas for the past tense as well including:

1. When the last vowel of the stem word is ㅗ or ㅏ, add 았다 
   1. 닫다  닫았다 (닫 + 았다) 
      1. 나는 문을 닫았다 
   2. 가다  가았다  갔다
      

1. When the last syllable of the stem word is 하, add ~였다 

1. 1. 공부하다  공부하였다 (공부하 + 였다) 
      1. 나는 한국어를 공부하였다
         

1. When the last vowel of the stem word is anything other than ㅗ or ㅏ or 하, add 었다 

1. 1. 먹다  먹었다 (먹 + 었다) 
      1. 나는 밥을 먹었다 

However, one rule worths noticing is that if a verb has a last syllable that ends in a vowel (including 하다), the ~았다/었다 gets merged to the actual stem itself. To illustrate, the example could be

아 + 아 = 아 

1. 가다 + 았다 = 갔다 
   1. The last vowel in the stem is ㅏ add 았다 to the stem 
      1. 나는 박물관에 가았다 
   2. But, because the stem ends in a vowel, 았다 can merge with 가  갔다 
      1. 나는 박물관에 갔다

This two-step formulation doesn't actually affect the meaning of the sentence, but to correctly and comfortably write or speak, this rule should be used because it makes the pronunciation of elements in a complete sentence easier.

The last tense we mentioned was the future tense and the rule is indicated below.

1. Add ~겠다 (get da) to the stem of a word 
   1. No difference if the stem ends in a vowel or a consonant   

The rule is easy to understand and the examples are:

• 나는 먹다 = I eat  나는 먹겠다 = I will eat 
• 나는 가다 = I go  나는 가겠다 = I will go 
• 나는 배우다 = I learn - 나는 배우겠다 = I will learn

At the end, we also done a little exercise to familiarize ourselves with the rules by changing the same verb into different tenses.