Korean Lessons ᚛ Level 7 - Upper-Intermediate Korean #2 (Lessons 181 to 210) ᚛ Lesson 202 - The bad habit in Korean [-기 일쑤이다] [-아/어 대다]
The bad habit in Korean [-기 일쑤이다] [-아/어 대다]
In the lesson on -곤 하다, we saw how to express a habit in a neutral way. Korean has two other structures which are used only for bad habits and excessive behavior: -기(가) 일쑤이다, "to have the bad habit of, it often happens that", and -아/어 대다, "to keep on doing, to do incessantly".
The bad habit with -기(가) 일쑤이다
To say that something annoying happens regularly, we use the following structure:
[Action: … Stem]기(가) 일쑤이다
The noun 일쑤 refers to something that happens frequently, and 이다 is indeed the descriptive verb "to be": we thus get -기 일쑤야, -기 일쑤예요, -기 일쑤입니다, -기 일쑤였어요. The verb is nominalized with -기, and the particle 가 is optional. The structure is only used for habits seen as negative: lateness, forgetfulness, quarrels. It is often translated as "often", but with a nuance of regret or reproach: "all too often…". It is used for oneself as well as for others.
상민이는 일찍 알람을 맞추지만 매번 늦잠을 자서 지각하기 일쑤였다.
→ Sangmin set his alarm early, but he overslept every time and was all too often late.
보라는 혼자서 밥을 잘 챙겨 먹지 않고 매일 배달 음식을 시켜 먹기 일쑤이다.
→ Bora does not bother to cook for herself when she is alone and orders delivery food almost every day.
지은이는 덤벙거려서 물건을 잃어버리기 일쑤예요.
→ Jieun is scatterbrained and loses her things all the time.
나와 종민이는 5년이나 만났지만 만나기만 하면 싸우기 일쑤야.
→ Jongmin and I have been together for five years, but whenever we meet, we often end up fighting.
요즘 카페에 있는 사람들을 보면 대화는 하지 않고 서로 핸드폰만 보고 있기 일쑤이다.
→ When you look at people in cafés these days, all too often they do not talk to each other and just stare at their phones.
매번 돈을 빌려 달라는 현수 때문에 친구들은 현수의 연락을 무시하기 일쑤였습니다.
→ Because Hyunsoo asked to borrow money every time, his friends all too often ignored his messages.
수진이는 매번 자기 말만 맞는다고 우길 뿐만 아니라 상대방의 이야기를 무시하기 일쑤였다.
→ Not only did Sujin insist every time that she alone was right, she also often ignored what the other person said.
To keep on doing with -아/어 대다
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Particles are omnipresent in Korean. They indicate the role of words in a sentence, nuance meaning, and make it possible to understand who does what, where, how, and why.
Particles are also often the aspect that causes the most difficulty for Korean learners. In grammar books, they are usually presented in the middle of long sentences, with complex vocabulary, without being clearly highlighted.
With Korean Particles, we made the opposite choice:
taking the time to explain each particle, one by one, using very simple sentences, accessible even to beginners.
