Lesson 26 - Connecting Sentences with - 지만

Hey everyone!  

Welcome back to another grammar post, and today it’s about connecting sentences! Yes, we’re doing it again, but today it’s not about -고 since we’ve already covered it (if you don’t remember, check here). Today we’re going to talk about another pattern that connects sentences, but its meaning won’t be the one of ‘and’ or ‘and then’.  

The pattern we’re talking about is -지만 and it has got the function to connect two sentences: one that has got a specific meaning and another one that undoes it. What do I mean with this? Basically, this pattern is translatable into but. Therefore, if you add this pattern to a sentence with a specific meaning like ‘I want to go hiking’, the sentence following it will need to express a different kind of meaning to the first sentence. I know it sounds complicated, but it’s actually pretty easy.  

Just think of how we use ‘but’ in English. It is basically the same thing. Let's look at the example I was starting to make before. You have two sentences: ‘I want to go hiking’ and ‘it’s raining’. If you want to use this pattern to connect these two sentences, you will attach it to the first one and connect it to the latter one. The Korean translation would be 등산을 가고 싶지만 비가 와요 I want to go hiking but it’s raining. 

The form of the pattern is similar to the one of -고: the pattern is attached to the verb stem of the final verb of the sentence (싶다 -> 싶지만, 읽다 -> 읽지만 and so on). 

Let’s look at some more examples: 

한국에 정말 가고 싶지만 아직도 한국어 잘 못해요 

I really want to go to Korea, but I still can’t speak Korean well 

내가 강아지를 이미 가지고 있지만 다른 개를  원해요 

I already have a dog, but I want another one 

딸기에 알레르기가 있지만 그것을 좋아하고 먹고 싶어요 

I’m allergic to strawberries, but I really like them, and I want to eat them 

오늘은 출근하지만 그것보다 집에서 나가고 싶지 않고 자고 싶어요 

Today I'm going to work, but I’d rather not leave the house and sleep 

As you can see, the two sentences connected (or more, as I’ve used patterns we’ve talked about in other posts; here and here) are not in a sequence like the ones used with -고. If you add -지만 to the final verb of one sentence, it will be followed by a reason for which something won’t/can’t/couldn’t happen or something similar.  

Just like -고, -지만 can express the past tense and, to do so, it’s attached to past tensed verb stems. Let's look at some examples: 

그 연극을 이미 구경했지만 너하고 다시 한번 가고 싶어요 

I’ve already seen that play, but I want to go with you again 

심리학자가 되고 싶었지만 힘들었고 포기했어요 

I wanted to become a psychologist, but it was hard, and I gave up 

그 책을 읽었지만 아무것도 배우지 않았어요 

I read that book, but I learned nothing 

그들은 두어 번 만났지만 진짜 친해지지 않았어요 

They met a couple of times, but they didn’t really get along 

Note that this pattern can also be used with the future tenses, but we'll mention this when we'll talk about the future tense.

(For the other patterns mentioned in this post, click here, here, here, here, here, here and here) 

VOCABS SET ON QUIZLET: 1

KPOPOLOGY WEBSITE: Home, KPOPOLOGY Explains 

DROPBOX FILES: Main folder,  Lesson 26 Practice

I will see you next time with another grammar post!

 구름