Lesson 5 - Learn How to Use 있다 and 없다

Hello everyone! Hope this new grammar post finds you well.  Today it’s all about two verbs that are used in several ways in the Korean language. I’m talking about 있다 and 없다. 

What are these verbs? What do they mean? And, how do we use them?  

We’ll reply to each of these questions, don’t worry. Just know that they’re not too bad to learn. So, let’s get on with it. 

Let’s start with 있다.  

This verb is usually translated into ‘to be (somewhere)’ if put in a sentence, but its dictionary definition in English would be ‘to exist’ which is near the meaning given in sentence translations. Remember it all depends on the context and on how this verb is used.  

If you’re using it by itself in a simple sentence, remember this simple rule: the nouns preceding it have to be attached to either one of the subject particles (if you don’t remember them, click here).   So, if you wanted to say something like ‘the teacher is somewhere/exists’ you would have the following sentence in Korean ‘선생님이 있다’.  

Let’s look at more examples with context, so that you see how it’s used by itself: 

질문이 있다? 

Do you have (any) questions? 

배고파요? 부엌에 음식 좀 있다 

Are you hungry? There’s some food in the kitchen. 

The negative counterpart of 있다 is 없다. Like the first one, it’s usually translated into a slightly different meaning than its dictionary meaning. In sentences, it could be translated into as ‘to not be (somewhere)’. But, as I reminded you for 있다, remember that context can change the meaning of the sentence and the verb.  

Therefore, to say something like ‘The teacher isn’t somewhere’ you will have to say 선생님이 없다. 

Let’s look at more examples: 

책이 없다 

There isn’t (any) books/ there aren’t (any) books 

문제 없다 

There's no problem 

Now, let’s look at the conjugation: 

Conjugating these two verbs to the present tense is pretty simple. You just have to add -어요 to the verb stem. Note we will talk about conjugating verbs another time so I won’t explain too much about this. 

So, the verbs would look like 있어요 and 없어요 when conjugated to the present tense. 

노트북이 없어요 

I don’t have a laptop 

강아지가 많이 있어요 

There are many/a lot of cats 

그림이 없어요 

There isn’t (any) painting 

볼펜이 많이 있어요 

(Someone) has a lot of pens 

These two verbs are used with a different kind of particle, too. The particle I’m referring to is the location/time particle -에 which, in these cases, is used with nouns expressing the location of the sentence. We will talk about it more another time. 

Let's look at some examples: 

엄마는 집에 없어요 

Mum isn’t home 

저기에 사람이 많이 있어요 

There are a lot of people there 

As I said before, there are different grammar patterns that use these verbs in them. I won’t list them all since there are loads of them. But you’ll see them in the blog soon! 

Also, know that there are a lot of verbs made out of these two verbs. You can refer to them as a branch of the different compound verbs in Korean. Let’s look at some of them: 

• 맛있다 to be tasty (flavour exists) 

• 맛 flavour, 있다 to exist/to be 

• 맛없다 to not be tasty (flavour not exist) 

• 맛 flavour, 없다 to not exist/to  not be 

• 재미있다 to be interesting/ funny (fun/interest have) 

• 재미 fun/interest, 있다 to exist/to be 

• 재미없다 to not be interesting/ funny 

• 재미 fun/interest, 없다 to not exist/to not be 

VOCABS SET ON QUIZLET: 1 

KPOPOLOGY WEBSITE: Home, KPOPOLOGY Explains 

DROPBOX FILES: Main folder, Lesson 5 practice 

  

I'll see you soon with another grammar point post!  

  

구름