Lesson 24 - Ways To Become - 되다

Hey everyone and welcome back to KPOPOLOGY GRAMMAR! 

Hope this blog post finds you well. Today we’re going to talk about one (technically it’s two) way to express the meaning of ‘become’ in Korean. How do we express this kind of function? Let's look into it together, shall we? 

You probably already understood that it’s about the verb 되다 since it‘s written in the title of this post. And you’re right. This verb literally means to become and it’s used with nouns. The pattern in this kind of sentence would be Noun이/가 되다 which would be translated into to become Noun. With this kind of verb, you will always need to use the subject particles 이/가 (if you don’t remember them, check here). Let's look at some examples: 

그는 그의 직업 덕분에 부자가 됐어요 

He became rich thanks to his job (if you don’t remember about the 덕분에 pattern, check here) 

그녀는 선생님이 되고 싶어요 

She wants to become a teacher (if you don’t remember about the 고 싶다 patter, check here) 

내 아들은 소방관이 되고 싶었어요 

My son wanted to be a firefighter (if you don’t remember the past tense conjugation, check here and here) 

Note that you might come across two different ways of conjugations for this verb, especially for its past tense. These two are 되었어요 and 됐어요, they both mean the same thing and there’s no difference in use. You might just come across either of them, but they sound the same so don’t worry too much about it: 

채연 씨는 승무원이 되었어요 

Chae-yeon became a flight attendant 

왜 호스트 가족이 됐어요? 

Why did you become a host family? 

Let’s look at more examples, so we can have more sentences to rely on. 

변호사가 되었고 지금은 매우 바빠요 

I became a lawyer and now I'm very busy 

우리는 곧 친구가 됐어요 

We soon became friends 

제빵사가 되고 싶고 내 빵집도 열고 싶어요 

I want to become a patissier and also open my own bakery (if you don’t remember the particle 도, check here) 

이제 기억이 됐어요 

It's now a memory 

우리 삼촌은 마침내 한국 시민이 되었어요 

My uncle finally became a Korean citizen 

As you can see this pattern is pretty easy, but keep in mind that this verb is also used in another pattern which we’re going to briefly introduce now. This pattern is -게 되다 which also means ‘to become’, the difference is that this pattern’s form is Verb게 되다. It would be translated into something like ‘I turned into...’ or ‘I became like this’. Let's look at some examples: 

얼굴이 빨갛게 됐어요 

My face turned red (for embarassment, or similar) 

그 영화 때문에 얼굴이 하얗게 됐어요 

I became pale because of that movie (something scared me) 

This pattern is usually used when you want to describe how something (or someone) changed and/or how that happens. Let's look at some more examples, shall we? 

김치를 아주 좋아하게 됐어요 

I came to really like kimchi (meaning I didn’t like it before) 

그 사람을 싫어하게 됐어요 

I came to dislike that person (something happened) 

다르게 생각하게 됐어요 

I came to think differently 

VOCABS SET ON QUIZLET: 1

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DROPBOX FILES: Main folder,  Lesson 24 Practice

I will see you next time with another grammar post!

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