어려원 문밥...

[austinfd]

Yesterday in my Korean class we went over two new grammar constructions that are similar and maybe sometimes interchangeable, but they are giving me some trouble...

I already know "~자마자" to mean "as soon as"

Last night we did:

~기가 무섭게 / ~ㄹ 기다렸는 듯이

The were presented as similar phrases, There were a couple sentences that were identical except for this pattern, which shows it is interchangeable:

지하철이 오기가 무섭게 사람들이 타기 시작 했다
월금을 받기가무섭게 백화점에 가서 옷을 사요

그리고

지하철이 오기를 기다렸다는 듯이 사람들이 타기 시작했다
월금을 받기를 기다렸다는 듯이 백화점으로 가서 옷을 사요.

Which I take to mean:

[spoiler]
As soon as the subway train came, the people got on it.
As soon as he gets his paycheck, he goes to mall and buys clothes.
[/spoiler]


But I didn't get the nuance about when one should be used over the other.

In these sentences, we had to choose which one to use...and I'm not 100% sure I understand each one.

1. 불이 (나가 부섭게 / 나가렸는 듯이) 건물 전체가 다 타버렸어요.
As soon as the building caught on fire, it burned? [seems a little redundant]

2. 암에 (걸리기가 무섭게 / 거리기를 기다렸다는 듯이) 몸이 점점 약해졌다.
As soon as he got cancer, he took medicine?

3. 생일 선물을 (주기가 무섭게 / 주기를 기다렸다는 듯이) 얼른 받았다
As soon as he gave the present, the child received it? [also seems alittle redundant]

Is there some reason that either one is the best choice?

[steved]

I think the -기가 무섭게 construction implies a sense of urgency that does not go with -자마자.
The other construction implies anticipation or expectation... waiting for (it) to happen so they don't quite mean the same thing.

"As soon as he got cancer he gradually became weak" (weakened- 약하다 to be weak, 약해지다 to become weak) The 무섭게 (scarily) construction to me implies that it happened right away and it was a bad thing or happened so fast it was scary. The other one says that you were waiting for it to happen that way (기다리다 -to wait). again, this is just one non-native speakers take on it, hope it helps.

[steved]

As for the redundancy in the fire one, there is that 버리다 verb that 현우씨 talked about in another post which says it happened completely. In this case the building burnt completely. "As soon as the fire started the building burned to the ground."

[austinfd]

Ah yes,

Thanks, I had noticed the 기디리다 / 무섭다 but couldn't work out how waiting and fear would apply...아이고!

Thanks again!