Lesson 120: ~다니

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Vocabulary
Introduction

How is this grammatical principle formed?
What does this grammatical principle mean?
~ㄴ/는다니

 

 

Vocabulary

Click on the English word to see information and examples of that word in use. Use these sentences to give yourself a feel for how each word can be used, and maybe even to expose yourself to the grammar that you will be learning shortly.

A PDF file neatly presenting these words and extra information can be found here.

Nouns:
해 = year

그네 = swing

후문 = back door/back gate

경향 = tendency/trend

해양 = ocean

내과 = internal medicine

빙하 = glacier

북극 = north pole

남극 = south pole

생물 = organism

조치 = measures, actions to take

해수 = seawater/saltwater

해수면 = sea level

지중해 = Mediterranean Sea

서식지 = habitat

쌍꺼풀 = double eyelid

시청률 = ratings

시청자 = viewer

단풍나무 = maple tree

Verbs:
녹다 = to melt/dissolve

취하다 = to take actions

서식하다 = to inhabit

시청하다 = to watch TV

Adjectives:
안도하다 = to be relaxed/relieved

힘겹다 = to be hard/tough/difficult

우울하다 = to be gloomy/blue/depressed

For help memorizing these words, try using our mobile app.

 

 

Introduction

In this lesson, you will learn how to connect two clauses with ~다니, which will be your first real introduction into the world of compounded quoted grammatical principles. I just made up that term off the top of my head, but let’s get started.

 

 

 

Indicating an Emotion after hearing what somebody says: ~다니
How is this grammatical principle formed?

As you progress to more and more advanced grammar in your Korean studies, you will often come across a grammatical principle that looks like one you already know but placed after ~다~ (or after ~(이)라~ in the case of nouns).

For example, look at what is being introduced in this lesson: ~다니. ~(으)니 is a grammatical principle that you learned in Lesson 81, and it is being placed after ~다~. Usually when you see this, the clause before ~다~ is a quoted sentence, and this entire quoted sentence is then attached to whatever the next grammatical principle is. Whatever precedes ~다~ (in our case, ~(으)니) compounds into the meaning of the grammatical principle that is attached to it.

From this lesson forward, I’m going to refer to these as compounded quoted grammatical principles because that is exactly what they are.

Let’s look at the following example:

네가 떠나다니 너무 슬퍼

Remember what I said: “The clause before ~다~ is a quoted sentence.” Therefore, in the example above, the following is a quote:

네가 떠나(다)~

But… how is that a quote? That doesn’t look like a quote.

When you see these compounded quoted grammatical principles, the ~다~ represents an abbreviation. It is an abbreviation of:

~ㄴ/는다고 하다 (remember that the rules change when quoting an adjective)

Therefore, the sentence from above could actually be written as this:

네가 떠난다고 하니 너무 슬퍼 = I am sad because you said you are leaving

However (as this lesson is going to describe) these types of sentences are often abbreviated to only include ~다니 between the two clauses.

As I mentioned before, there are many other compounded quoted grammatical principles, each that will be introduced in its own lesson when it becomes important. At this level, this is really the only important one that you need to worry about. However, it would be good to remember that if you see a grammatical principle attached to ~다~ instead of being directly attached to the verb/adjective – you are most likely looking at a compounded quoted grammatical principle.

Just one more example to show you what I mean before we move on. The following:

그녀가 예쁘다더라

Is actually an abbreviation of:

그녀가 예쁘다고 하더라

I don’t want to get into the meaning of ~다더라 (although based on what you learned in Lesson 118, I bet you can already guess it!) or any other compounded quoted grammatical principle. At this point, I just want you to be familiar with what you are looking at in case you come across one of these while studying on your own.

 

 

What does this grammatical principle mean?

Okay, now that we understand what this grammatical principle is composed of, we can start talking about its meaning. Much like ~더니 from the previous lesson, ~다니 is typically used in one specific type of sentence. Let’s look at the example from before again, because ~다니 is almost always used this specific format:

네가 떠나다니 너무 슬퍼

The format is: The speaker repeats something that another person said (which is placed before ~다니 as the quoted part of the sentence), and then the speaker indicates his/her emotion or feelings as a result of hearing that fact. A simple translation for the sentence above would be:

네가 떠나다니 너무 슬퍼 = I’m sad that you are leaving

However, you need to remember that the first part of the sentence is actually a quote. Therefore, detailed (but less flowing) translation would be:

네가 떠나다니 너무 슬퍼 = Now that/because I have heard that you are leaving, I am sad, or
네가 떠나다니 너무 슬퍼 = After hearing that you are leaving, I am sad

The most common emotions that are used after the quoted sentence are adjectives that express one is sad, happy, surprised or impressed. Let’s look at a bunch of examples, all of which you will see follow a similar format:

너의 아버지도 오시다니 기뻐
= I’m glad that your dad is coming as well (Now that I have heard that your father is coming as well, I am glad)

너의 부모님이 이혼하시다니 안됐다
= It’s too bad that your parents are getting a divorce (now that I have heard that your parents are getting a divorce, it is too bad)

네가 나에게 고맙다니 내가 더 고맙다
= After hearing you say ‘thank you’ to me, I feel more thankful

슬기가 대학원에 가다니 믿을 수 없어
= I can’t believe Seulgi is going to graduate school (now that I have heard that Seulgi is going to graduate school, I can’t believe it)

북극에 있는 빙하가 다 녹다니 큰 일이다
= It is a big problem that all the glaciers in the north pole are melting (After hearing that all the glaciers in the North pole are melting, (I can see that) this is a big problem

우리 집 앞에 경찰서가 생기다니 다행이다
= Thankfully a police station is being built in-front of our house (Now that I have heard there is a police station being built in-front of our house, I am thankful)

I’m not going to give the full “quoted sentence” translation for the upcoming sentences. Mainly because it is redundant and I think you get the idea:

해양 생물이 점점 사라지고 있다니 믿을 수가 없다
= I can’t believe that the organisms in the ocean are gradually disappearing

부모님의 허락도 없이 쌍꺼풀 수술을 하다니 정말 실망이다
= I’m disappointed that you would get a double eyelid surgery without the permission of your parents

아이들은 추워도 아이스크림을 많이 먹는 경향이 있다니 신기하다
= It’s crazy that kids have the tendency to eat ice cream even when they are cold

지중해 해수면이 해마다 점점 높아지고 있다니 이제라도 조치를 취해야 한다
= The Mediterranean Sea level is gradually increasing each year, so we’ll need to act right now

그 프로그램에 대한 시청자 반응이 이렇게 안 좋다니 다시 프로그램을 만들어야 해요
= The reactions of the viewers to that program weren’t good, so we need to make the program again

The clause before ~다니 can also be conjugated into the past tense. This makes the quoted part of the sentence in the past tense. I’ve used some of the examples above in the examples below so you can see how they might differ slightly:

네가 떠났다니 너무 슬퍼
= I’m sad that you left (Now that/because I have heard that you left, I am sad)

슬기가 대학원에 갔다니 믿을 수 없다
= I can’t believe Seulgi went to graduate school (now that I have heard that Seulgi went to graduate school, I can’t believe it)

너의 부모님이 이혼하셨다니 안됐다
= It’s too bad that your parents got a divorce (now that I have heard that your parents got a divorce, it is too bad)

Okay, enough of the extra translations:

네가 나에게 고마웠다니 내가 더 고맙다
= After hearing that you said ‘thank you’ to me, I feel more thankful

너의 강아지가 죽었다니 너무 안됐다
= It is too bad that your dog died

그 토끼의 서식지가 다 없어졌다니 안됐다
= It is too bad that that rabbit’s habitat disappeared

놀이터에 있는 그네가 망가졌다니 믿을 수 없다
= I can’t believe that the swing in the playground broke

우리가 만든 드라마의 시청률이 떨어졌다니 너무 실망스러워요
= I’m very disappointed that the ratings for the drama we made dropped

동네 내과에 갔더니 대학 병원 내과에 가라고 하다니 점점 걱정이 되기 시작했다
= I went to a local clinic, and they told me to go to a university hospital, so I started to get more worried

Depending on the situation, it is also possible to end a sentence with ~다니 in this form. That is, use the sentences above, but not indicate your emotion after ~다니. When this is done, the emotion that would be said is assumed from context. For example, if somebody just said the following:

너의 부모님이 이혼하셨다니…

Assuming the speaker wasn’t some weirdo who wanted to start dating your mother or father after the divorce (and wanted to tell you about it), you can assume from the context that the speaker would want to say something like “it’s too bad.”

Another good example would be:

너의 강아지가 죽었다니

You always need to remember that Korean people love shortening their sentences!

 

 

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~ㄴ/는다니

Earlier in the lesson I stressed that the grammatical principle we were dealing with was ~다니 and not ~ㄴ/는다니.

You must be asking yourself what meaning does ~ㄴ/는다니 have, then?”

You probably won’t believe this – I didn’t believe it when I first learned it – but this has the same meaning as described above, except for that the quoted part of the sentence is in the future tense. For example:

슬기가 대학원에 간다니 믿을 수 없어요

This would translate to:

I can’t believe Seulgi will go to graduate school (now that I have heard that Seulgi will go to graduate school, I can’t believe it)

I don’t know about you, but this – to me – absolutely doesn’t look like it should be the correct translation. Other examples, which are the same as the examples earlier, just conjugated differently:

너의 부모님이 이혼하신다니 안됐다
= It’s too bad that your parents will get a divorce (now that I have heard that your parents will get a divorce, it is too bad)

우리 집 앞에 경찰서가 생긴다니 다행이다
= Thankfully a police station will be built in-front of our house (Now that I have heard there will be a police station built in-front of our house, I am thankful)

북극에 있는 빙하가 다 녹는다니 큰 일이다
= It is a big problem that all the glaciers in the north pole will melt (After hearing that all the glaciers in the North pole will melt, (I can see that) this is a big problem

학교 후문을 내일부터 이용 못 한다니 짜증난다
= It’s annoying that we won’t be able to use the back door of the school starting from tomorrow

집 앞에 있는 오래된 단풍나무를 잘라야 한다니 너무 안타까워요
= It is too bad that we we will have to cut the old maple tree in front of our house

That’s it for this lesson!

Okay, got it! Take me to the next lesson!