Lesson 19 - How to Conjugate Verbs In The Negative Forms

Hello everyone! 

How’s it going? Today we’re back with a brand-new grammar post, and it’s about one grammar pattern that can be used through two forms. Let's start before I confuse you already! 

The grammar pattern I’m referring to is the Negative Sentence pattern. I might have mentioned it in previous posts, and definitely in some KPOPOLOGY EXPLAINS. Anyhow, we’re finally going to talk about them. Don’t worry, they’re not that hard to understand and the rule is pretty simple.  

Let’s start with the first form of it: the short negative with 안 and 못.  

How does this work? It’s easy. You just have to conjugate the verbs as if there was nothing different in the sentence and have these two words act like adverbs (adverbs like 잘 well) which are usually put right before the verb in the sentence. Let me show you an example: 

오늘은 점심을 먹었어요 

The sentence above means ‘today I ate lunch’, but if you wanted to give the sentence a negative meaning, you could simply add one of the words written before. Let’s see how the sentence would change by adding either one of them: 

오늘은 점심을 안 먹었어요 

I didn’t eat lunch today  

오늘은 점심을 못 먹었어요 

I couldn’t eat lunch today 

What is the difference between the two? It's pretty simple. And, it’s very similar to the English difference between can’t and don’t/doesn't. So, if you keep those in mind, you will have an advantage. 

Let’s look at the first one of the two sentences: 오늘은 점심을 안 먹었어요. The word 안 means not and, as you can see, it is put before the verb. In this case, the sentence gains the meaning of didn’t do something. The reason behind it might be something like ‘I didn’t because I didn’t want to’ or meanings that express some sort of intention.  

The second sentence, 오늘은 점심을 못 먹었어요, has got the other word 못 which means can’t and, just like 안 is located right before the verb. The meaning is different from 안 because, instead of giving an ‘intended justification’ to the negative action, it expresses the meaning of ‘something out of my control happened, therefore I didn’t have the chance to do the action’. To say it into simple words, it expresses an impossibility.  

Let's look at some more examples: 

난 여기에 안 속해요 

I don’t belong here 

시험을 잘 못 봤어요 

I didn’t do well on the test (I couldn’t because something else happened: I didn’t study well, the questions weren’t the ones I expected, and so on) 

내 영어실력은 아직 안 완벽해요 

My English isn’t perfect yet  

나는 상상도 못했어요 

I couldn’t imagine it 

The second version of the negative sentences is the long form, which is -지 않다. This form is usually attached to the verb stem of the verb, and it expresses the tenses in the sentence.  

그것은 깨졌어요 

The sentence above means ‘it broke’. But, if you wanted to add the long negative for to the verb, the sentence would turn into 그것은 깨지지 않았어요 which can be easily translated into it didn’t break. It works the same with either regular or irregular verbs, all you need to focus is the verb stem. 

별로 맵지 않아요 

It's not that spicy 

나는 그렇게 생각하지 않아요 

I don’t think so 

오늘은 컨디션이 좋지 않아요 

I don’t really feel like myself today 

확실하지 않았어요 

I wasn’t sure 

얼룩이 지워지지 않았어요 

The stain is still here (literal meaning: the stain is indelible) 

다행히도 아무도 다치지 않았어요 

Luckily, no one was hurt 

VOCABS SET ON QUIZLET: 1 

KPOPOLOGY WEBSITE: Home, KPOPOLOGY Explains 

DROPBOX FILES: Main folder, Lesson 19 Practice

I will see you next time with another grammar post!

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