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examples of Korean under-appreciating tense

# Posted: 30 Mar 2008 20:05 KST - Edited by: _joseph_
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some tense gotchas here ..... native English speakers have to learn that tense is less important than state; use tense just when necessary to convey a story in chronological order. Also, the past tense functions to state a reason, often, for the sentence which follows it (especially when combined with a verb ending which denotes that the first clause states a reason for the second clause)

1. Korean has no perfect tense

얼마 되지 않았습니다

It hasn`t been for a long time is expressed in the simple past

2. before 때 ..... (and anything which can be used to end a noun clause) do not use past tense unless specifying a reason

스티브 킴이 컨설팅 회사에 있을 때 ....

should be in the past tense, not the present tense. Thjs falls under the rule that there is no perfect tense in Korean, just drop it.

3. the first clause of 2 clauses ignores tense, it is shown in the last clause

꿈도 꾸지 않고 잤다

. He slept without dreaming.

여자애는 인근 여고에 다니고 있고 아버지를 따라 작년에 서울에서 내려왔다고 했다

translation: the girl went to a nearby women`s high school, and the previous year she had followed her father and come down from seoul.
the purple should be in past tense

어께에 봉대를 감고 .... 사무실에 서 있었다

he stood in the office with a bandage wrap around his shoulder.

4. adjectives ignore the perfect tense, just add an ending onto the verb stem (grammatically). adjectives are adjectives, do not embellish them with fancy tenses to make them feel like English.

1. 가라앉은 목소리로 this is techincally past, but an adjective is an adjective
2. 조세, 케이트가 집에서 시체로 발견되었어. 총에 맞은 거야.

모두 문을 닫은 상태였고

지금까지 타고 온 지프 the jeep they had ridden to that point

Korean has no perfect tense, remember.

통행인이 없는 것이다.

the above sentence is in the past tense. 통행인 is people passing through

5. before 는지 .... (and anything which can be used to end a noun clause) do not use past tense

AK-47을 쉬고 있는지 모르겠지만 삼부가 쏘았을 것이라고 믿어졌다

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