Learning Korean (한국어 배우기) [COMPLETE]

Unit 1.9 - Conjugate 이다 (할것이다) (2)

How to actually conjugate verbs/adjectives to the Future Tense

In Lesson 6, you learned how to conjugate words to the future tense by adding 겠어/겠어요/겠다/겠습니다 to the word stem. Though adding ~겠~ to a word stem is one way to conjugate words to the future, there is a more common way to conjugate to do this!

Before learning how to do to this, you need to learn more grammar first.

Either way, ~겠~ is still used in Korean, but not as much as the method you are about to learn.

For verbs or adjectives, when conjugating into the future tense, you must first add ~ㄹ/을 to the stem of the word.

When you add ~ㄹ/을 to a word stem, ~ㄹ is directly to words ending in 자음, and ~을 gets added onto words with 받침.

가다 (자음)
가다 + ㄹ = 갈

먹다 (받침)
먹다 + 을 = 먹을

There is also one irregular involved with adding ㄹ/을 to a stem.

If the 받침 is ㄹ, then you actually don't add anything. That sounds weird, but it is true.

갈다 has a 받침, so you would normally add 을:

갈 + 을 = 갈을
But saying this is weird. Try to pronounce that: 갈을.
Instead, it is way easier to just say 갈.

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This is going to sound extremely complicated (and it is):

adding ~ㄹ/을 to the stem of an adjective changes it to a word that can describe a noun in the future tense.

행복한 사람 = happy person
행복할 사람 = a person that will be happy

Similarly, (this is where it gets complicated) adding ~ㄹ/~을 to a stem of a verb turns it into a word that can describe a noun in the future:

먹을 음식 = the food that will be eaten.

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If you don't understand, don't worry. That level of grammar is very difficult to grasp at this stage of learning.

- Adding ~ㄹ/~을 to adjective describes a noun in the future tense

- Adding ~ㄹ/~을 to verb describes a noun in the future tense

- Because these newly formed words can describe nouns, they must be followed by a noun.

What does all this have to do with conjugating into the future?

When Korean people conjugate to the future tense, they usually do so by adding ~ㄹ/~을 to a verb/adjective. This is essentially the same as adding ㄴ/은 to an adjective: (좋다 -> 좋은).

You should know, however, that you can't end a sentence like this:

나는 좋은

Because 좋은 is an adjective that modifies a noun, a noun must follow 좋은:

나는 좋은 사람

Now, to end the sentence, you need to add 이다 to the noun:

나는 좋은 사람이다 = I am a good person.

So, again, when Korean people conjugate verbs/adjectives to the future tense, they usually do so by adding ~ㄹ/~을 to the word stem:

나는 행복할
나는 공부할

But this changes into an adjectives. So a noun needs to follow.

나는 행복할 것
나는 공부할 것

Now.. the ender.

나는 행복할 것이다
나는 공부할 것이다

If you try to directly translate these sentences to English, they have the meaning:

I am a thing who will be happy
I am a thing who will study

But there actual meanings are:

나는 행복할 것이다 = I will be happy
나는 공부할 것이다 = I will study

The 이다 can then be conjugated based on the level of politeness or formality.

것 is also sometimes shortened to 거, for no other reason than it is easier to say and creates a shorter sentence. For example, these two are exactly the same:

저는 밥을 먹을 것이에요 = I will eat rice
저는 밥을 먹을 거예요 = I will eat rice

Notice that ~이에요 is added when 것 is used and ~예요 is added when 거 is used. This is the same rule that you learned earlier in the lesson when conjugating 이다 depending on if the noun has a 받침 or not.

나는 내일 친구를 만날 것이야 = I will meet my friend tomorrow

나는 내일 친구를 만날 거야

저는 내일 학교에 갈 것입니다 = I will go to school tomorrow

저는 영어를 공부할 거예요 = I will study English

Irregulars come into play when adding ~ㄹ/을 to a verb or adjective because of the possibility of adding a 자음. Let's look at the word "걷다" as an example. 걷다 has a 받침, which means that ~을 must be added.

걷을

Because of this, we now have the 받침 "ㄷ" followed by a vowel, which causes the ㄷ irregular to be applied. The correct conjugation of 걷다 + ~ㄹ/을 것이다 is therefore "걸을 것이다."

Below is a table that shows how ~ㄹ/을 effects each of the irregulars

Irregular ㅅ Irregular
Example Word 짓다 (build)
Does this apply? YES
Application 지을 것이다

Irregular ㄷ Irregular
Example Word 걷다 (walk)
Does this apply? YES
Application 걸을 것이다

Irregular ㅂ Irregular
Example Word 쉽다 (easy)
Does this apply? YES
Application 쉬울 것이다

Irregular ㅡ Irregular
Example Word 잠그다 (lock)
Does this apply? NO
Application 잠글 것이다

Irregular 르 Irregular
Example Word 부르다 (call)
Does this apply? NO
Application 부를 것이다

Irregular ㄹ Irregular
Example Word 열다 (open)
Does this apply? YES
Application 열 것이다

Continue - Unit 1.9 (3)