Lesson 15
Sometimes you forget the name of someone, something, or some place. Sometimes you do not remember what someone else has said or on what date something happened. In those situations, you might ask yourself or say things out loud like, “What was it?”, “What was it again?”, “What was I going to say?”, “Where were we going to meet tonight?”, etc. In this lesson, let us take a look at how to say those phrases in Korean.
Key Structures
1. -더라? (Only possible with casual language and speaking to oneself)
2. -았/었/였지? (Only possible with casual language and speaking to oneself)
3. -았/었/였죠? (Only possible with formal language)
Usage of “-더라?” (Only possible with casual language and speaking to oneself)
You can add -더라? at the end of the verb stem of an action verb to say, “I forgot. What was it that...”. When you want to use -더라? with a noun, however, you need to change the noun into the verb form by adding -이다.
→ Noun + -이다 (to be) + -더라?
You can drop -이 when the noun ends with a vowel, so therefore for nouns such as 나무, 여자, 남자, 누구, etc., you can simply add -더라? at the end.
Let us take a look at some examples
이거 누구 책이에요? = Whose book is this? / This is whose book?
→ 이거 누구 책이더라? = Whose book was this again? (I forgot,) Whose book is this?
주연 씨 생일이 언제예요? = When is Jooyeon’s birthday?
주연 씨 생일이 언제더라? = When was Jooyeon’s birthday again? / When is Jooyeon’s birthday? (I forgot.)
이거 어떻게 해요? = How do you do this?
이거 어떻게 하더라? = How do you do this? (Can you tell me again?)
Usage of “-았/었/였지?” (Only possible with casual language and speaking to oneself)
-았/었/였지? basically has the same usage and construction as -더라?, so you can change the endings of all the example sentences above to -았/었/였지.
이거 누구 책이더라?
→ 이거 누구 책이었지?
주연 씨 생일이 언제더라?
→ 주연 씨 생일이 언제였지?
* Here, this sounds like a past tense sentence, but that is not necessarily the case. Jooyeon’s birthday might be coming up in the future, but you can still say this in the past tense. By using the past tense, you are actually referring to the point where you used to remember.
이거 어떻게 하더라?
→ 이거 어떻게 했지?
The meanings are the same, but the latter (using -았/었/였지?) has a slightly stronger nuance toward the past tense.
Usage of “-았/었/였죠?” (Only possible with formal language)
-았/었/였죠? is basically the same as -았/었/였지? but is in the 존댓말 form. -았/었/였죠? is originally just -았/었/였지 + 요? but when pronounced quickly and naturally, it becomes -죠 at the end. Therefore, you can use all the example sentences above with -죠? or -지요? at the end to make the sentences more polite and formal.
Usage With -다고 and -라고
Since you can use -더라?, -았/었/였지?, and -았/었/였죠? when checking with someone what something is called or when something is scheduled, etc., you can often hear people say these together with -다고 or -라고. This is because -다고 and -라고 are used in order to “quote” someone.
Ex)
이거 뭐였죠?
= What was this again? / What is this? (I forgot.)
이거 뭐라고 했죠?
= What did you say this was?
Sample Sentences
석진 씨가 언제 온다고 했죠?
= When did you say Seokjin was going to come? / When did Seokjin say he was going to come?
석진 씨가 한국에 언제 왔죠?
= When did Seokjin come to Korea? (I forgot.)
석진 씨가 한국에 언제 오더라?
= When is Seokjin coming to Korea? (I forgot.)
이거 누구 거더라?
= Whose is this? (I forgot.)
이거 누구 거라고 했더라?
= You said this was whose? / Whose did you say this was?
그 사람 이름이 뭐더라?
= What was his name again?
= 그 사람 이름이 뭐였더라?
= 그 사람 이름이 뭐라고 했더라?
내일 몇 시에 올 거라고 했죠?
= What time did you say you were going to come tomorrow?
이게 한국어로 뭐였죠?
= What was this in Korean again?