Lesson 40 (Beginner 2B Lesson 8): I will go the theatre and watch a movie

Wow, it's lesson 40 already. I didn't even realise it was the last lesson of the term, since the teacher didn't mention it. I guess everyone is continuing on to the next term.

The girl with the name as the previous teacher did not attend the lesson. The observable pattern still holds, that our teacher was at the school during this week's lesson, so it really looks like alternate weeks. I wonder if they are doing some form of split team ops.

We did some revision of last week, doing the activities in the textbook. Then we covered the last 2 grammar points for this chapter and completed the handout.

Grammar

3. V-아서/어서

This is used to connect two clauses that occurred sequentially. It indicates a continuity from the first to the second.

With -아서/어서, when you put two actions together, it implies that the first action must happen before the second can happen.

The first is a necessary action that must happen before the second one can happen, and changing the order is not possible.

For this reason, it's very common to have the following 3 verbs:

1. 만나다: 만나서 (meeting someone and then doing something together after)
2. 가다: N에 거서 (going to a place, and then doing something there)
3. 일어나다: 일어나서 (waking up and then doing something)

The way to conjugate this is very similar to conjugating the Informal Polite Present Tense that we saw back in Chapter 3 (Lesson 12), where we had V-아요, V-해요, V-어요.

There are basically 3 possible ways, depending on the verb.

1. For verbs with vowels ㅏ, ㅗ: Add -아서
2. For verbs 하다 verbs: Add -해서
3. For all other verbs: Add -어서

So the groups are the same, just that instead of 요 this time it's 서.

Examples:

1. 친구를 만나서 영화를 봐요. (I meet my friend and watch a movie.)
2. 집에 가서 요리해요. (I go home and cook.)
3. 저는 7시에 일어나서 차를 마셔요. (I wake up at 7am and drink tea.)

Like with 고, you only express the tense for the last verb, not the first.

Example (past tense):

• 어제 친구를 만나서 영화를 봤어요.

-아서/어서 vs -고

This actually has the same meaning as V-고.

We learnt 고 first as a connector for 2 events in sequential order and later as a connector which doesn't necessarily imply things in sequential order.

In terms of usage for V-아서/어서, as noted earlier, it means that the first action is a necessary action for the second to take place.

Earlier, there was this sentence: 어제 친구를 만나서 영화를 봤어요. (Yesterday, I met my friend and we watched a movie.)

If you did not watch the movie with your friend, then you would use 고: 어제 친구를 만나고 영화를 봤어요. (Yesterday, I met my friend and watched a movie.)

However, unlike with -고, the subject of both verbs for -아서/어서 must be the same.¹ If the subject is different, use 고. With 고, you omit the subject for the second part when it's the same.

Another example I will bring up is one that apparently only Singaporeans tend to get wrong. The teacher said that she had never seen people use -아서/어서 instead of -고 for this sentence until she started teaching in this country.

Now we did this in groups (a group of 3 for me, since we have 5 in a class with a person absent, and for this lesson our groups were the same except for the first activity where I was paired with the teacher), and I got it wrong (and agreed with my classmates) mostly because I was thinking of 일어나다 (to wake up) and somehow thought the same applies for 자다 (to sleep). Clearly, my brain wasn't quite working.

• 어제 열두 시에 샤워해서 잤어요. (X)
• 어제 열두 시에 샤워하고 잤어요. (O)

The sentence is translated as: "Yesterday, I showered at 12 and went to sleep."

The point being that you don't have to shower before bed. You could easily be too tired.

The reason why people here get this wrong apparently is because they like to go to bed clean (??). This is quite interesting to me because I just had a conversation about this very recently.

I was playing a game with my colleague 2 nights ago (well, it was early morning, past 2am) and he said he still had to shower, and we sort of had a conversation about that. For me once I was done with the game I'd go to bed because I don't start to play until I get everything done and can immediately sleep after. To which he said it's his preference to go to bed "squeaky clean" and so would shower regardless (interesting to me because if it were me I'd be too tired to do anything else). So I thought he was more of the exception, but maybe it's not as out of the ordinary. It might be a product of the humid weather. Nowadays I do shower in the evenings but it's not right before sleeping.

Then there is one more sentence that I was wondering about, which I thought could use -아서/어서 instead of -고 because it was describing a habitual action, implying a kind of order:

• 유진 씨는 매일 숙제하고 텔레비전을 봐요. (Yujin does homework and watches television every day.)

But my classmates reasoned (correctly) that it's not necessary for one to be done before the other. So even if it's usually something done in order, but doesn't have to be, then you would also use -고.

4. V-(으)ㄹ 거예요

This is used to indicate a future plan or possibility.

The teacher called it the future tense, so I guess it kind of is. (My hesitation is whether Korean has a future tense because as you can tell from the structure it's very different from the present and past tense, but it might be just me overthinking things.)

Pronunciation wise, note that 거예요 is actually pronounced as [꺼에요].

The front part V-(으)ㄹ is the same as V-(으)ㄹ 까요.

Unlike the past and present tenses, you use the basic form (dictionary form, e.g. 만나다) of the verb for this conjugation.

Whenever you see this optional 으 part it's an indicator that you are checking the batchim.

• 받침 O + 을 거예요
• 받침 X or ㄹ + 거예요

Examples:

1. 오늘 수업 후에 공부 할 거예요. (I am going to do homework after the class today.)
2. 내일 식당에 가서 밥을 먹을 거예요. (I am going to the restaurant to eat tomorrow.)

Bonus: Formal

There was an example sentence which has the formal form, and so we have:

• 받침 O + 을 것입니다
• 받침 X or ㄹ + 것입니다

Examples:

1. 오늘 수업 후에 공부 할 것입니다요. (I am going to do homework after the class today.)
2. 내일 식당에 가서 밥을 먹을 것입니다. (I am going to the restaurant to eat tomorrow.)

Recall that "this" is 이거, but this is informal. The original form is actually 이것 (which you use in formal speech). Similarly, here, instead of 거, you use the original form 것.

Then, instead of 예요, you use 입니다.

Vocabulary

I also want to talk about 보내다. We were practising the conjugations today, so the teacher had those physical cards with a picture in front and the verb behind. So we started with the side with the words, and then we did the pictures. We had to conjugate it in the present tense (V-아요/어요), past tense (V-았어요/었어요), and this new future tense that we learnt (V-(으)ㄹ 거예요).

The last card I got was 보내다. First, I didn't recognise the picture. (It was someone at the post office sending a parcel.) But even after being told the verb, looking at 보내다, I was looking at it and I didn't know it was 보내요. Basically, I couldn't derive the conjugation because 보내다 actually defies the rules we have been taught. It's an exception.

On Wiktionary, it has both forms: 보내요 (the more common one), and 보내어요 (the one you'd expect from following the rules). Intuitively, 보내어요 felt wrong and so I was hesitant.

Why it felt wrong was because I'd seen 보내다 before, used with the meaning "to spend time" in this phrase: 좋은 하루 보내세요! ("Have a nice day!")

So my intuition was correct, but based on a wrong reason. (See Lesson 36 for how it's conjugated; it uses the basic form and is not the same as the present tense.)

I think no one else was getting tripped up because there had been a question in the handout today (for the third grammar point) that had 보냈어요, and naturally took it as 보내요? I have no idea, because I sure didn't trip up when I wrote down the past tense form 보냈어요. But clearly this is a verb I was weak it because it led to confusion.

So if I'm using 보내다 and -아서/어서, I guess it should be 보내서.

I wonder how many verbs there are like this, weird exceptions. Probably many.

...I guess more accurately, I wonder how many of them I've encountered even in passing before, and not realised it.

Title

The title is based on the 2 grammar points, future tense + and (sequential action, with the first being a necessary condition for the second).