9. Verb Conjugation 이다 (ida)

Verb Conjugations

Korean grammar has 3 types of verb conjugations, 하다, 이다, 있다 (Some says it’s 2 without 있다, they consider 있다 as a variation of 이다). Verb conjugations make ‘verbs’. lol too obvious? So, any word, has -다 conjugations, that you can see shows it’s a verb.

They are not only types. They have different roles in Korean grammar such as ‘do, ‘be’, ‘have’ in English. In this lesson, we will learn 이다 verb conjugation.

Things That Piss You Off

A lot of Korean lessons teach you 이다 is ‘be’ in English and that’s super wrong. I’m not even talking about Korean lessons from internet. Even textbooks from Korean universities make same mistakes. (I refer many as much as I can for perfect lessons)

Buying those books or online lessons is wasting your time and money for imperfect lessons. It’s really hard to find what’s missing unless you are native (actually it was not easy to me either). A Korean textbook’s price is $20 usually and your time can’t be put a price.

lol I wrote bad words a lot at first when I wrote this but they were gone while I organized my thoughts.

Standard

Of course, not all Korean textbooks or Lessons are bad. Yet, you still can’t tell what’s good or bad. Now I’ll offer you a standard to measure a quality of Korean lessons. Before you buy a book, find ‘이다(be) chapter’ in the book that you want to buy and compare it to this lesson that you are seeing right now. If the book doesn’t teach you something I do, it’d mean the book sucks so much. (I wrote only super essencial stuffs that you must know about 이다 in this lesson)

Meanings of 이다 Verb Conjugation

Often many Korean textbooks and teachers teach you ‘이다 verb conjugation’ means ‘Be’. That’s only 10% correct, 90% wrong. Its definition can be ‘do something (verb)’, ‘be + adjective’, ‘be + location’ and ‘be + noun’. So, it’s almost same to 하다(do).

This lesson would be too long If I teach you all of them now. So, Let’s dig it deeper with Basic Course later. I will show how it’s used today and focus on the ‘be’ function.

훌쩍이다 (하다 speech style)
훌쩍여요 (해요 speech style)
= Verb based on onomatopoeia
= sniffle / snuffle / sob

준은 한참을 훌쩍였다
= Jun sobbed for a while

죽이다
죽여요
= Interactive verb
= Kill (verb)

모기 다 죽여요
= kill all mosquitoes

끈적이다
끈적여요
= Be + Adjective based on an onomatopoeias.
= Sticky

이 과자는 너무 끈적여요
This snack is too sticky

과학적이다
과학적이에요
= Be + Adjective based on a Chinese word
= Scientific

배우는 것은 과학적이여야 해요
Learning should be scientific
과학적 is a noun / adjective. Any Korean adjective word based on a Chinese word uses ‘이에요’ conjugation, not 여요.

이다 Be

이다 has a function that 하다 doesn’t have. It’s ‘be + noun’. It’s the most important function of 이다 verb conjugation but you shouldn’t forget about others because it would be so confusing if you ignore 이다 verb and adjective. 이다 also can be used for locations without a locative postposition(Korean preposition).

Before you move on, check the pronunciation of 이다. It uses different conjugations when it’s used as ‘be’.

준은 한국 사람이다 (하다 speech style)
준은 한국 사람이에요 (해요 speech style)
= Be + noun
= Jun is Korean

태국은 아름다운 나라다 (하다 speech style)
태국은 아름다운 나라예요 (해요 speech style)
= Be + noun
= Thailand is a beautiful country

저는 카페예요
I’m cafe
= Be + Location
= I’m at a cafe

When you use 이다 as ‘be + location’, you can’t use 하다 speech style because this phrase is focused on real conversations and 하다 speech style doesn’t suit on it.

Shouldn’t ‘ieyo’ and ‘yeyo’ sound same?

Yes, It does in English because technically ‘예(ye)’ sounds same to ‘이에(ie)’ if you pronounce ‘이에(ie)’ fast. Then how do Koreans knows which one is 이에요 or 예요? When Koreans pronounce 이예요, Koreans put an accent on 이. So it sounds like 이–예요. I didn’t realize it either before I wrote this lesson!