In class we learned about a very important and confusing part of Korean grammar: particles. In the English language, just the sentence structure and the rules of agreement alone are enough to help one understand what the subject, object, and verb of a sentence are. In Korean, particles are added to the end of words to emphasize what the subject of the sentence is and what the topic of the sentence is.
We learned that -은 and -는 are topic marking particles used with words ending with a final consonant and words ending with a vowel respectively, and that -이 and -가 are subject marking particles used with words ending with a final consonant and words ending with a vowel respectively. In the moment, this was a pretty simple idea that I could easily wrap my head around. Little did I know that it was going to get extremely complicated in just a few moments. Other than simply being used to mark the subject and the topic of a sentence, -은/는 and -이/가, when used in a sentence by themselves and not as a pair, have very subtly different meanings that Professor Sumi Kim told us even advanced Korean language learners struggle with. So obviously we struggled with understanding the nuances.
I did, however, really like the way Professor Sum Kim approached the concept. She first let us create our own scenarios and ask her various questions related to the scenario and its contextual clues. Then she replied using the appropriate particle and she explained why she chose that particle. So, by examining the situation and the implications of using a certain particle, I was able to slowly start understanding what situation each particle suits. After an hour (or more) of going through about a dozen different scenarios and way too many questions, I think I somewhat finally understood the subtle difference between using -은/는 and -이/가.
I think it is that -이/가 is used when you want to emphasize uniqueness in a specific thing, and -은/는 is used when you want to say something about a specific thing. For example, assume someone comes up to you with a couple of books and ask you which one you think is good. If you point to a book and say:
이 책이 좋아요, it means that there is no other book as good as this one, and
이 책은 좋아요, it means that I know for sure that this is a good book, but I don’t know about the others.
Another example, assume someone asked you what devices were present in a room that you entered, you’d say 컴퓨터가 있다 if there was a computer present in the room, and if someone asked you whether there was a scanner present in the room, you’d say 컴퓨터는 있다 if you only saw a computer but didn’t see a scanner.
I’m still not sure if this is the full depth of usage of these particles. Honestly, I’m not even sure about whether what I say above is accurate or whether I’m possibly completely off-base here, but after a lot of hard work this is what I gathered. I hope that as I keep learning more and more Korean and reaching more advanced levels which dive deeper into Korean grammar, I’ll be able to fully understand the concept of particles and their usage, and be confident about it.
Comments
Its interesting to see how certain nuances in grammar can have unique implications. Is this similar to case? When learning case in Ge’ez I found that even that small grammatical cue amplified my comprehension so much. I also noticed that in English case is not shown by attaching an affix but rathe by sentence structure.
This is a really interesting post about the differences in certain grammar structures in Korean Sreya! That is really great that Professor Kim chose an approach to learning that fit your language learning needs because it is really important to have the right learning method for how you learn best.