TTMIK Level 6 Lesson 1 - How about ...?

Welcome to Level 6 of TalkToMeInKorean. You have already come a long way in learning the Korean language and we are really looking forward to helping you take your Korean to the next level.

From Level 6, we will be introducing more “sentence patterns” than in the previous lessons, as well as still introducing some new grammar points. In “grammar point” lessons, we start from a Korean grammar point and introduce how it is used, but in “sentence pattern” lessons, we will start from an English sentence pattern and explain how to say that in Korean.

In this lesson, let us take a look at how to say “How about …?” in Korean. There can be many ways to say this, but the most basic and common translation is “어때요?”.

How about …? = Noun + 어때요? = Verb stem + -는 거 어때요?

어 때요? comes from the verb 어떻다 [eo-tteo-ta], which literally means “to be how”. Therefore when you want to say phrases such as “How about this one?”, “How about that one?”, “How about eating here?”, etc, you can use this verb, 어떻다.

Examples (with nouns) 1. 이거 어때요? [i-geo eo-ttae-yo?] = How about this?

2. 생일 선물로 카메라 어때요? [saeng-il seon-mul-lo ka-me-ra eo-ttae-yo?] = How about a camera as your/his/their birthday present?

3. 내일 어때요? [nae-il eo-ttae-yo?] = How about tomorrow?

Examples (with verbs) 1. 다시 하는 거 어때요? [da-si ha-neun geo eo-ttae-yo?] = How about doing it again?

2. 다른 사람한테 물어보는 거 어때요? [da-reun sa-ra-man-te mu-reo-bo-neun geo eo-ttae-yo?] = How about asking other people?

3. 안으로 들어가는 거 어때요? [a-neu-reo geu-reo-ga-neun geo eo-ttae-yo?] = How about going inside?

Sample Sentences 1. 이거 싫어요? 이거(는) 어때요? [i-geo si-reo-yo? i-geo(-neun) eo-ttae-yo?] = You don’t like this? How about this one?

2. 내일 만나서 이야기하는 거 어때요? [nae-il man-na-seo- i-ya-gi-ha-neun geo eo-ttae-yo?] = How about meeting and talking about it tomorrow?

3. 이렇게 하는 거 어때요? [i-reo-ke ha-neun geo eo-ttae-yo?] = How about doing it this way?

Word contractions -는 거 + subject marker (이/가) → -는 것 + 이 → -는 것이 → -는 게 -는 거 + topic marker (은/는) → -는 거 + 는 → - 는 건

이렇게 하는 거 어때요? [ Neutral ] = How about doing it this way?

이렇게 하는 게 어때요? [ + Subject Marker ] = How about doing it this way? * The meaning is almost the same as the neutral sentence.

이렇게 하는 건 어때요? [ + Topic Marker ] = (Since you aren’t too sure about the other ideas,) how about doing it THIS way (then)?