🇺🇸 Translation
🌻🌻🌻🌻The Seoul concert tour was really fun, right?🌻🌻🌻🌻😛
📙 Lesson point
How to say “Right?” in Korean
Hello, everyone! We’re going to learn three things today. First, we’ll learn about the Korean adjective ‘그러하다’ and its meaning. Next, we’ll take a look at its conjugated forms: We’ll learn about the meaning and the pronunciation of ‘그렇지?’ and we’ll also learn about ‘그래서.’
After reading today’s post, not only will you be able to learn how to say “Right?” in Korean, but you’ll also understand how this Korean expression is grammatically formed. Moreover, we’ll look into the actual expression that Jihyo of TWICE used for her Instagram post. Let’s begin!
Korean adjective ‘그러하다’
Here, we’re going to look at the adjective ‘그러하다’ and the expressions that are its conjugated forms. The adjective ‘그러하다’ has the meaning of ‘to be as such, to be that case.’ This word can be shortened as ‘그렇다.’ It is the abbreviated form of ‘그러하다.’
Although it is an adjective that indicates that the speaker meets a specific situation or the conditions that were already mentioned in the context of that conversation, it is rarely used as an adjective by itself. Its derivative expressions are used much more frequently.
Conjugated form (1) ‘그렇지?’
Now, let’s look at the conjugated forms of ‘그러하다.’ The first one we’ll look at is ‘그렇지?’ It is an expression that is made by adding the interrogative ending ‘-지?’ to the adjective ‘그렇다.’
‘그렇다’ (to be as such) + ‘-지?’ (asking for confirmation)
This expression is used in situations in which the speaker thinks his or her remarks are true and asks the other party for consent. In English, it would be most natural to understand and translate it as ‘Isn’t it?’, ‘Right?’, or ‘Correct?’ Let’s look at some examples.
안나는 정말 예쁜 것 같아. 그렇지? = I think Anna is really pretty. Isn’t she? 여기 정말 추운 것 같아. 그렇지? = I think it’s really cold here. Right?
How to pronounce ‘그렇지?’
Now, let’s learn how to pronounce the word ‘그렇지.’
When we look closer into the pronunciation of ‘그렇지?’ you can see that the base of the middle syllable ‘ㅎ’ and the first consonant of the last syllable ‘ㅈ’ get combined, and get pronounced as ‘ㅊ.’
Therefore, it’s standard to pronounce ‘그렇지?’ as [그러치?]. So, among friends, in many cases, ‘그치?’ is used colloquially for short to express informally and friendly. In the given expression, Jihyo has used ‘그칭?’ to say it in a cuter manner.
However, you need to remember that ‘그렇지?’ is the grammatically correct expression but ‘그칭? isn’t a grammatically correct expressions. It is more like a cute way of speaking that internet users use frequently.
Conjugated form (2) 그래서
The second conjugated form we’re going to look at is ‘그래서.’ It is a form where ‘-아서/어서,’ which has the meaning of “as” is combined to ‘그러하다’ (to be the case).
그러하다 (to be the case) + -아서/어서 (as) = 그러하여서 (as it is the case that I mentioned)
‘그래서’ is the abbreviated form of ‘그러하여서.’ Just as it is the same for English, people don’t usually say “as it is the case that I mentioned.” People would rather use the abbreviated form ‘so’. Hence, ‘그래서’ is way more often used than “그러하여서” as a transition word. Let’s look at some examples.
그래서 어떻게 할 거야? = So what are you going to do? 치즈 케이크는 칼로리가 높은데, 그래서 더 맛있는 거야. = Cheesecake is high in calories, so that's why it's more delicious. 샘은 성격이 좋다. 그래서 다들 샘을 좋아한다. = Sam has a good personality. So everyone likes him.
Jihyo says: 서울콘 너무 재밌었다 그칭?
To conclude, Jihyo is saying, “The Seoul concert tour was really fun, right?” She seems to have posted pictures of her during the Seoul concert to show how much fun she had. As we learned, the grammatically correct form would be, ‘서울콘 너무 재밌었다, 그렇지?’ However, Jihyo said it as ‘그칭?’ to just say it in a cute manner.