Sensory Verbs in the Third Person

[sincla]

Hello,

I've been studying Korean for some time now and there is one point that still causes me to stumble.

It's the fact that Korean doesn't let you use verbs that describe how someone feels or perceives things in the third person. For example, let us use the verb "to be/feel cold", 춥다.

Although I can say "나는 춥다" in the first person, which means "I am cold", and this is perfectly OK, I CANNOT say "그는 춥다" in the third person to mean "He is cold."

The only way I learned to deal with this is to use the auxiliary verb, -어 하다 to transform it into "그는 추워한다", "He finds it cold". However, I know from experience that except for certain very widely used verbs in this conjugation, like 좋아하다, this is kind of stilted and not the most common way of expressing verbs like this in the third person.

So, KoreanClass101 team, please help me out! How can I easily and naturally express these kinds of verbs in the third person? How can I say things like, "My friend is cold. He is glad. He is bored. He is tired." etc, the way a native speaker would?

[Keith]

Hey Sincla,

Thanks for your question! And I definitely can relate to what you're talking about.

The 3rd person pronoun 그 and 그녀 are rarely used. Although they mean "he" and "she," people rarely use these pronouns. Instead, they use titles, such as 내 친구 (my friend), or 제 선생님 (my teacher). Or names too.

So instead of "he went to the store" a more natural way to say that would be "my friend went to the store" or "(name) went to the store"

The only places I've seen 3rd person pronouns are in books. It's not used very much in spoken Korean

[manyakumi]

You can make them in two ways.

First way is as you've mentioned, 어/아 하다 form.

My friend is cold.
-> 내 친구가 추워한다.
-> 제 친구가 추워해요.

He is glad.
-> 그 사람이 기뻐한다.
-> 그 사람이 기뻐해요.

He is bored.
-> 그 사람이 지루해 한다.
-> 그 사람이 지루해 해요.

He is tired.
-> 그 사람이 피곤해 한다.
-> 그 사람이 피곤해 해요.

Second way is to make a quotation form.

My friend is cold.
-> 내 친구가 춥대.(shorten version of 춥다고 해)
-> 제 친구가 춥대요.

He is glad.
-> 그 사람이 기쁘대.
-> 그 사람이 기쁘대요.

He is bored.
-> 그 사람이 지루하대.
-> 그 사람이 지루하대요.

He is tired.
-> 그 사람이 피곤하대.
-> 그 사람이 피곤하대요.


You can also use 은/는 for making a little bit different nuance.
For example,

내 친구는 춥대.
-> My friend is cold.
(but i have no idea whether the others are cold or not) or
(but i'm not cold)


hope this helps.

[sincla]

이렇게 시간 내서 자세한 대답을 해주셔서 대단히 감사합니다! 도움이 많이 됩니다. ^^

I can only use the quotation form if my friend (or whoever) actually told or expressed to me his feeling in some way, right? I can't just say it because I think he is cold, for example. In that case I have to use 추워한다, right?

[javiskefka]

My understanding of the difference between -ㄴ다고 해 and -ㄴ대 is that the first is a second hand account of what somebody said, while the second passes through another layer of narration to were it is a general account of somebody else.

[sincla]

Hmmm...I'm pretty sure there's no difference in meaning. -(ㄴ)대 is just a contraction of -(ㄴ)다고 해. Just like in English, "is not" can be shortened to "isn't". Meaning is the same.

[manyakumi]

My pleasure, sincla.

And you're perfectly right.
You can't use the quotation form when you just think like that.
In that case, you can also use ㄴ것 같다 form.

내 친구가 추워한다.
내 친구가 추운 것 같다.
내 친구가 추워하는 것 같다. (My friend seems to be cold.)

These are all right.

You may say 추운 거 같다/추워하는 거 같다 in a spoken language.

[sincla]

Thank you soo much. You've cleared up something that has been confusing me for a while. You're a great help!