Lesson 27
When asking about the amount or degree of something, you can use the word 얼마나 to say things like “how big (얼마나 큰)”, “how fast (얼마나 빠른)”, and “how high (얼마나 높은)”. In this lesson, we are going to look at two useful expressions that use 얼마나.
1. 얼마나 -(으)ㄹ까(요)
얼마나 means “how much” or “to what extent”, and -(으)ㄹ까(요) expresses a guess or assumption. All together, “얼마나 + verb stem + -(으)ㄹ까(요)” means “how ... will it be?”
Ex) 저 건물은 얼마나 비쌀까(요)?
= How expensive will that building over there be?
= I wonder how expensive that building over there is.
You can express empathy by imagining the other person’s situation by using “얼마나 -(으)ㄹ까(요)” with a word related to one’s feelings, such as 좋다, 아프다, 힘들다, 속상하다, 기쁘다, etc. In this case, the expression is often followed by 생각하니(까) to mean “thinking about how much/to what extent one must have done so-and-so”. If you are talking about an incident in the past, you can use “얼마나 -았/었/였을까(요)”.
“얼마나 -(으)ㄹ까(요)” is also often used when you are thinking out loud, and not necessarily expecting an answer. When used in this way, you say it in 반말 without -요.
Sample Sentences
얼마나 좋을까?
= How good would it be?
= How happy he must be!
얼마나 아플까요?
= How painful would it be?
= How painful it must be!
얼마나 아팠을까?
= I wonder how painful it must have been.
= I wonder how painful it was.
얼마나 힘들었을까요?
= I wonder how hard it must have been.
= I wonder how hard it was.
그 사람이 얼마나 힘들었을까 생각하니 가슴이 아파요.
= It breaks my heart to think about how much he must have suffered.
제 친구들이 얼마나 고생했을까 생각하니 미안하네요.
= I feel bad thinking about how much work it must have been for my friends.
2. 얼마나 -(으)면
얼마나 means “how much” and -(으)면 means “if”. The actual meaning of this phrase is “in order for THAT to have happened, there must have been this much of THIS”. The part before -(으)면 can be in the past tense, too, as in 얼마나 -았/었/였으면.
Examples
얼마나 추웠으면 = how cold he must have been (in order for him to do that)
얼마나 바쁘면 = how busy she must be (in order for her to do that)
얼마나 맛있으면 = how tasty it must be (in order for that to happen)
얼마나 -(으)면 is usually paired with endings like -겠어(요)? or -(으)ㄹ까(요)?
얼마나 A + -(으)면 + B + -겠어(요)?
= How (much) A do you think it is for B to happen?
얼마나 A + -(으)면 + B + -(으)ㄹ까(요)?
= How (much) A do you think will it have to be for B to happen?
Sample Sentences
얼마나 무거웠으면 끈이 끊어졌을까?
= I wonder how heavy it must have been for the strap to have snapped.
얼마나 재미있었으면 게임을 열 시간 동안 했을까?
= I wonder how fun it was for them to play the video game for 10 hours.
= The game must have been a lot of fun because they played it for 10 hours.
얼마나 노래를 불렀으면 목이 저렇게 쉬었을까요?
= I wonder how much she sang for her voice to get that hoarse.
얼마나 급했으면 선생님이 직접 전화했겠어요?
= How urgent must it have been for the teacher to have called in person?
얼마나 걱정됐으면 제가 여기까지 왔겠어요?
= Can you guess how worried I was to come all the way here?
= I was so worried that I came all the way here.