먹기 좋아요.
My daughter, 민서, usually has hard time falling asleep.
While I try to put her to sleep, she often asks for water, 5 times or more.
Last night it went same as usual.
By the time it reached to her 5th time, I didn’t want to put myself up and get water(even though it was in the same room, on the shelf)
민서: 물 주세요. 엄마
Give me some water.
엄마: 또?, 물 꼭 마셔야 돼? 그냥 자!!
Again?, You don’t really need to drink it, do you? Just sleep!!
민서: 아아, 물 먹기 싫어요.
uh~, I don’t want to drink water.
(She didn’t mean to say this, but when I’m opposed to what she wants, she often makes mistakes by saying negative things. What she wanted to say was 물 먹고 싶어요-I want to drink water)
엄마: 물 먹기 싫다고? 그래. 물 먹지 마.
You don’t want to drink water? Well, don’t drink it then.
민서: (realizing she said something wrong)
아니, 물 먹기 좋아요.
No, I like drinking water.
엄마: 하!하!하!
(I laughed because she was good to put 좋아요 to replace 싫어요 but that’s not what is normally said)
After this conversation, I realized that the opposite of ‘물 먹기 싫어요’ is NOT ‘물 먹기 좋아요’ BUT ‘물 먹고 싶어요’
When ‘좋다’ is used as in ‘~기(가/에) 좋다’, it means ‘good/convenient/easy to do~)
먹기 좋다
보기가 좋다
살기 좋다
숨기에 좋다
팔기에 좋다
Here is your trackback. trackback. Thank you as always for this excellent stuff.
Comment by joseph — May 14, 2007 @ 12:17 am
And 좋다/싫다 as well as 고 싶다 have the interesting property that they take what an English speaker would think to be the object as SUBJECTS.
Comment by taemin — May 14, 2007 @ 4:51 am
Taemin — huh?
Comment by joseph — May 14, 2007 @ 8:51 am
Joseph — Fill in the blanks:
1. 사과____ 좋다
A. 를
B. 가
C. 에
D. 에게
2. 그 사람____ 싫더라
A. 으로부터
B. 이
C. 으로 하여금
D. 을
등등등
Is that more clear?
Comment by taemin — May 15, 2007 @ 10:16 am
나는 사과가 좋다.
나는 사과를 좋아한다.
나는 그 사람이 싫다.
나는 그 사람을 싫어한다.
Taemin, I know your point.
It’s really complicated, I completely agree.
좋다 is an adjective whereas 좋아하다 is a verb.
싫다 is an adjective whereas 싫어하다 is a verb.
좋아하다, 싫어하다 need objectives.
To be familiar with the usage of 좋다, 싫다,
I suggest to take this sentence as a good example of similar structure.
It’s likable for me to eat apples.
나는 사과 먹기가 좋다.
나는 사과 먹는 것이 좋다.
‘to eat apples’ is a kind of subject here, right?
But this doesn’t apply when nouns are followed by 좋다, 싫다 as in your example sentences.
So I looked for more information to explain this.
and I finally got some, but I’m not sure this will finalize this complication.
Let’s try.
Out of many usages of 이/가, there is special usage for this one.
It is used when you are talking about an object which you have some feeling for(especially when it’s used with 좋다, 싫다, 그립다, 무섭다, etc.)
나는 개가 무섭다.
나는 한국이 그립다.
나는 번데기가 싫다.
나는 김밥이 좋다.
Comment by dreamer — May 15, 2007 @ 11:10 am
Dreamer-
Your comment is much more clear than my own. Thanks for the added elucidation. One question, though: is this sentence idiomatic?
나는 그 사람을 싫어한다.
I have my doubts…
Comment by taemin — May 16, 2007 @ 3:00 am
trackback to discussion of adjectives
Comment by joseph — May 16, 2007 @ 8:51 am
to taemin.
I don’t exactly know what you mean by ‘idiomatic’.
The pattern we use with ‘싫어하다’ are like:
~이 ~를 싫어하다
~이 ~는 것을 싫어하다
~이 ~기를 싫어하다
But I don’t think the sentence 나는 그 사람을 싫어한다 idiomatic.
Just one of possible combination of any subject and object.
그 사람은 나를 싫어한다.
나는 그 여자를 싫어한다.
우리 엄마를 아빠를 싫어한다.
나는 거짓말 하는 사람을 싫어한다.
Why did you ask that question?
Was there any specific situation which made you think it’s idiomatic?
Comment by dreamer — May 18, 2007 @ 2:12 am
All I meant to say is that I often hear people say “싫다” when they are the one doing the hating and “싫어하다” when someone else is. Just a vague feeling.
Also, that 좋다 and 싫다 don’t take objects is clear enough, but the thing that I find counter-intuitive is that, while ~고 싶다 *can* take an object marked by 을/를, it seems more often that “object” is marked by 이/가.
Along the same lines, I just watched the DVD 미녀는 괴로워 this afternoon. One of the lines in the movie has the agent of a star announcing her arrival, “오셨어,” and then the producer starts grousing “여왕이야? 오시긴 뭘 오셔?” His use of 뭘 instead of 뭐가 (or 누가) is a puzzle…
Comment by taemin — May 19, 2007 @ 3:34 pm
great post - I love this ‘learning with my daughter’ section!!!!
Comment by stat — May 22, 2007 @ 7:43 am
Taemin
Note the difference.
나는 [네가 거짓말 하는 것]이 싫어.
나는 [네가 거짓말 하는 것]을 싫어해.
And the next thing, 오시긴 뭘 오셔
This is more an idiomatic expression.
하긴 뭘 해(you say this when you are pretty sure that somethinge is not done, or someone has not done something yet, the nuiance is rather cynical)
오시긴 뭘 오셔
the speaker doesn’t think it’s appropriate to use ‘시’ here.
because he or she doesn’t think she deserves it. So literally, 여왕이야? 오시긴 뭘 오셔 is ‘Is she a queen or what?, what is the point of using ‘시’ here.
It’s only applied in this context you gave.
There are some more to say about this, maybe later.
Comment by dreamer — May 22, 2007 @ 1:22 pm
i like it because i can learn atleast little by little..thanks
Comment by joy — March 25, 2008 @ 10:13 am