Lesson 27 - The Korean -ing form with 고 있다

Hello everyone and welcome back to another KPOPOLOGY GRAMMAR post. 

Today we’re going to talk about the –ing form in Korean. What do I mean with –ing form? Let me show you with an example: I’m waiting for someone. The verb ‘to wait’ is conjugated into ‘am waiting’ which expresses an action being in process. That's exactly what the pattern we’re going to talk about today is about. 

In Korean, when you want to express the continuity of an active action, you use -고 있다. This pattern is made by two grammar points we have talked about, but those two are not really necessary in this case. What do I mean by saying active action? You have to make sure that the subject of the sentence is doing the action (active) and not experiencing it or undergoing it (passive). Said in simpler words: it’s I'm eating the rice and not the rice is being eaten by me.  

The form is pretty simple. You have to attach this pattern to the verb stem of the final verb of the sentence you want to express into the –ing form. Differently from other patterns we’ve seen (지만 and 고), this pattern cannot express the tense in the stem attached to the -고 in the pattern. You will be able to conjugate the verb 있다 in it, though, so don’t worry.  

Let's look at some examples: 

부산에 기차로 가고 있어요 

I’m going to Busan by train 

제가 크리스마스  트리을 틀고 있어요 

I’m lighting up the Christmas tree 

내가 바로 그것을 말하고 있어요 

That's what I'm saying 

You can express the past tense, the future tense and even attach other patterns to the verb 있다 in this pattern. Let's look at more examples: 

어제 5시에 사극을 보고 있었어요
I was watching a historical drama yesterday at 5  

택시를 타고 있을 거예요 

I’ll be going by taxi 

학생들은 모두 열심히 배우고 있었어요 

All the students were learning very hard 

연락 기다리고 있겠어요 

I’ll look forward to hearing from you 

VOCABS SET ON QUIZLET: 1

KPOPOLOGY WEBSITE: Home, KPOPOLOGY Explains 

DROPBOX FILES: Main folder,  Lesson 27 Practice

I will see you next time with another grammar post!

 구름