Korean Lessons ᚛ Level 5 - Intermediate Korean #2 (Lessons 121 to 150) ᚛ Lesson 127 - Duration and money in Korean [-는 데]

Duration and money in Korean [-는 데]

In this course: 는 데 / 걸리다 / 들다 / 쓰다

In the previous lesson, we studied the -는 데 structure, which is used to talk about a situation, a fact. You should know that this form is particularly used in two cases:

• to express the duration of an action
• to express the money an action costs

The duration of an action

The verb 걸리다

The verb 걸리다 means "to take" in the sense of the time taken to do an action. We can indicate how long an action takes with the help of the subject particle 이 / 가 in the following manner:
[Duration](이/가) 걸리다

5일이 걸려.
→ It takes 5 days.

30분이 걸렸어요.
→ It took 30 minutes.

시간이 얼마나 걸렸어요?
→ How long did it take?

3년 정도 걸릴 거예요.
→ It will take about 3 years.

Specifying the action that takes time

So far, we have formed sentences that express the time needed to carry out an action without explicitly specifying that action. If we want to express the action that takes a certain amount of time, we can use the following structure:
[Action: … Present adjectival form] 데(에) [Duration](이/가) 걸리다

In this structure, only the present adjectival form of action verbs is used. For sentences in the past or future tense, it is the verb 걸리다 that carries the tense marker.

이 책을 다 읽는 데 일주일이나 걸렸어.
→ It took me a whole week to read this book.

집에서 회사까지 오는 데 얼마나 걸려요?
→ How long does it take you to get from home to the office?

그 음식은 요리하는 데 10분밖에 안 걸려요.
→ Cooking that dish only takes 10 minutes.

저 건물을 짓는 데 5년이 걸렸습니다.
→ It took 5 years to build that building.

이 시계를 고치는 데 며칠이나 걸릴까요? 내일 찾으러 와도 될까요?
→ Will it take several days to repair this watch? Can I come and pick it up tomorrow?

숙제를 다 하는 데 1시간 정도 걸릴 거야.
→ It will take me about an hour to do all my homework.

몸무게 10kg 감량하는 데 두 달밖에 안 걸렸다고?
→ You’re saying it only took you two months to lose 10 kg?

보통 2시간 걸리는데 오늘은 길이 막혀서 가는 데 1시간이 더 걸렸어요.
→ It usually takes 2 hours, but today the roads were congested, so it took me 1 more hour to get there.

밥 먹는 데 얼마나 걸려?
→ How long does it take you to eat?

The cost in money

The Korean currency

The Korean currency is called the won, and is written 원 in Korean. 원 is used as a regular numeral classifier, placed after a Sino-Korean number.

For your information, 1 US dollar is roughly equivalent to 1,350 won (the rate varies).

150원 [백오십 원]
→ 150 won

1000원 [천 원]
→ 1,000 won

20000원 [이만 원]
→ 20,000 won

Using 들다 and 쓰다

Specifying the cost of an action

Exercises

For anyone who wants to learn Korean, mastering Hangeul, the Korean writing system, is an essential step. However, truly understanding how these new characters are used, their real pronunciation, how they function within words, and above all remembering them well enough to read fluently in the long term is often a difficult task for Korean learners.

Master Hangeul in 2 Weeks is a 14-day program in which you learn, day after day, all the secrets of Korean characters so that you can master them and never forget them again. Each day, you discover Hangeul through comprehensive lessons and a wide range of reading and writing exercises. An unlimited online training mode allows you to practice as much as you want until you reach excellence.

Learn more

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