"책은 의미가 없습니다."
Translation:Books are meaningless.
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So does 의미 have a definition of 'meaning'? And therefore with 없습니다 it becomes 'meaningless'?
책(books)은(particle, meaning books in general) 의미(meaning)가(particle, to be or to have)없습니다(does not/negative). :) ♡
it takes it from "to have a meaning" to "to not have a meaning", which is "to be meaningless" :) to english speaker it looks like positive, but the word "meaning" is kind of a part of the verb so it's not
I'm not gonna use my Korean keyboard because I'm lazy but uimi means "meaning" so eobsseubnida makes it the opposite.
입니다 means to be something. like I'm x. 자는 입니다. 있습니다 to be somewhere, there is something. For example. 저는 학교에서(in school) 있습니다/있어요.(i am, i exist here)
Korean has these things called 'particles', which are blocks you attach to the end of words to denote things like topic or object. I think the 가 is one
Yes 가 is an extension and it is added at the ending of the subject word ending in a vowel. But is the subject word ends in consonant, we add 이 to it.
이/가 is the subject marker; 은/는 is the topic marker. If a word ends in a vowel (ㅏ, ㅑ, ㅐ, ㅒ, ㅓ, ㅕ, ㅔ, ㅖ, ㅗ, ㅛ, ㅜ, ㅠ, ㅡ, ㅣ; eg. 고양이) it will be 는/가; if it ends in a consonant (eg. 동물) it will be 은/이. I do suggest finding a website that helps you understand it better, it is a bit hard for me to explain :)
In the sentence "The bread is tasty", the bread is the subject and its deliciousness is the topic. Does that make sense?
I'm not convinced tasty would be the topic. But even if it is, just because it's clear in a "subject verb object" example doesn't make it clear in other examples.
In fact, it's often the opposite: "The bread is tasty"->"The bread has flavor"->"Regarding the bread, there is flavor/flavor exists" and flavor (tasty/tastiness) becomes the subject and bread is the topic.
Well i think they are subject particle because I am a beginner so I don't know that much but these are subject particles or object particles you can see seemile korea class playlist in YouTube ok ,, actually after all am learning from 1,2 weeks I didn't get what is written i can read hangul but slowly like i have to think what was that word , it looks easy to learn new language but it is really hard ,
Sometimes they come and say "yes, men are people" and i'm like WDYM?? is there some kinda agenda they're trying to convince us of?
They come from the same Chinese characters: 의미 意味 ①meaning; sense ②implication ③significance; meaning
Okay, so if i understand this correctly, Chaek = book, uimi = meaning, and eopseumnida= to not have/ or to not exist.
Everyone here is taking about the subject/topic particle, while me here is a bit mad about the sentence given, books are not meaningless
Anyone else feeling personally attacked because someone thought books are meaningless?
Is 의미 the word for meaningless, with 가 as an addition? Or is 의미가 in its entirety the word for meaningless?
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의미 is just "meaning", 가 is a topic marking particle, so it indicates, that in this sentence the word "meaning" is a topic
then 의미가 없습니다 means something like "there is no meaning" therefore "meaningless"
and if it was 의미가 있습니다 it would mean "meaningful"
hope I explained it well :)
Here's some info for particles like 가:
Think of 가 and 이 as being used to bring in new information, and 은/는 being used to connect what's already known to the new information.
In this sentence: 남자는 메시지가 있습니다 (The man has a message), you probably would've already known about the man with past context.
Maybe you're sitting in your office and your secretary comes in. "There's a man outside wanting to see you." They say. There would've likely been a 가 attached to the man, since it's new information that he exists.
"What does he want?" You reply.
"He (the man) has a message./남자는 메시지가 있습니다." The secretary replies. You already know about the man. He's not new information. What's new information is the message. So, 'message' is the item that will have 가 attached to it, putting more emphasis on it than the man. The man will just have 는 attached to it to attach it to the next word.
I learned this concept from Japanese, and from what I've seen so far, it seems to be the same in Korean. I never understood it when people just said "as for (item), etc. etc." when explaining は, which in Korean is 은/는, and it seems that sentence is popping up here too. I didn't even know what that meant! As for the man? How does "as for..." tell me when to use は or が (은/는 or 가/이)?
I feel like a better way to explain it would be "as for (object), which you already know about +은/는, this is what's new that exists +가/이."
So, to connect that back to the original sentence 남자는 메시지가 있습니다, it'd be like this:
"As for the man (which you already knew about, so you'd use 는 with him), he has a message (using 가 since this is new information, so it gets more emphasis)."
Of course, if you're introducing the man and the message in the same sentence, you'll just put 가/이 on whatever needs more emphasis or could be considered more important.
남자는 메시지가 있습니다. There is a man and he has a message, but the part with more attention/emphasis is the message he has.
남자가 메시지는 있습니다. (I switched 가 and 는). There is a man and he has a message, but what's getting more attention is that there's a man that has the message. 》Maybe the secretary from before came in and said "There's a message for you," making the message already known. "Who has it?" You ask. "A man has the message," replied the secretary, placing the 가 on the man because he's the new information.
Hopefully this makes more sense to anyone reading it! I know I could've used a better explanation when I first learned how this stuff worked, heheh.
TL;DR
Your examples are incorrect because you are mixing different use cases of the topic marker. To put it succintly:
- Subject and Topic markers tag old/new information only in the context of sentence formation; as a response to a question.
- Noun markers are not interchangeable. However topic markers can replace subject (and object) markers.
- Topic markers can be used to add contrasting emphasis.
Examples
The old/new information paradigm occurs because of how a sentence is formed. This is best illustrated in Question-Answer pairs.
- A sentence whose subject is tagged with a subject marker answers questions about who/what/where. The sentence introduces new information about the subject given an old cirumstance.
누구가 메시지가 있습니까? = "Who has the message?"
남자가 메시지가 있습니다 = "The man has a message."
누구가 메시지를 씁니까? = "Who writes the messages?"
남자가 메시지를 씁니다 = "The man writes the messages."
- A sentence whose subject is tagged with a topic marker answers questions about the subject itself. The sentence introduces new information about the circumstances about an old subject.
남자는 어떻습니까? = "What about the man?"
남자는 메시지가 있습니다 = "The man has a message."
Existential verb 있다 creates a relation between two phrases and tags both phrases with a subject marker. Topic markers can replace these instances of the subject marker.
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남자가 메시지가 있습니다 = "The man has a message."
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남자는 메시지가 있습니다 = "The man has a message." or "The man (as opposed to anyone else) has a message."
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남자가 메시지는 있습니다 = "The man has a message (as opposed to anything else)." or "The message has a man."
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남자는 메시지는 있습니다 = "The man (as opposed to anyone else) has a message (as opposed to anything else)."
Direct objects of other verbs cannot be tagged with a subject marker. However topic markers can replace these instances of the object marker as well.
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남자는 메시지가 씁니다 is an ill-formed sentence.
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남자가 메시지를 씁니다 = "The man writes a message." (Answers a who-question)
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남자는 메시지를 씁니다 = "The man writes a message." (Answers a how-question)
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남자가 메시지는 씁니다 = "The man writes a message (as opposed to anything else)." (Answers a who-question)
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남자는 메시지는 씁니다 = "The man writes a message (as opposed to anything else)." (Answers a how-question) or
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남자는 메시지는 씁니다 = "The man (as opposed to anyone else) writes a message (as opposed to anything else)."
In larger sentences with multiple clauses, subjects of these clauses are tagged by subject markers. Typically the topic of the sentence is tagged with a topic marker and all subsequent subjects are tagged with subject markers.
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개는 남자가 쓴 메시지가 있습니다 = "The dog has the message that was written by the man."
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개가 남자가 쓴 메시지가 있습니다 = "The dog has the message that was written by the man." (Answers a who-question)
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개는 남자는 쓴 메시지는 있습니다 = "The dog (as opposed to anyone else) has the message (as opposed to anything else) that was written by the man (as opposed to anyone else)."
These noun markers are used to organize ideas within a sentence. However these markers are frequently dropped because in most cases there is a clear way to organize the ideas. Adding subtext is assisted by markers, but it is primarily conveyed through spoken emphasis.
References
의미 is meaning and 없습니다 is "doesn't have". When translated directly, the sentence is "The book does not have meaning", but since meaningless is more commonly used in English, that's the phrase it is translated to.
What would the sentence be for the translation THE books are meaningless to be correct? Duo marked me wrong.
I think itd be "책이 의미가..." because then theyre both the topic.. im just guessing though
No, this would be confusing and have the translation of either "Meaning doesn't have books" or "Books have no meaning" If you want to specify a group of books and not all books, a specific book that is known, or a group of books that was mentioned earlier; you would need to use (그-Those) So the sentence would be "그 책은 의미가" In this way the listener may be able to infer which books you are saying have no meaning.
So if item A is/isn't object b and object b could be used as an adjective why is it considered wrong? For example... "The book is meaningless" easily becomes "the meaningless book" in English.
"Meaningless" is an adjective in English that does not have a direct translation without some knowledge of modifying Korean verbs.
Duolingo starts you with the noun 의미 ("meaning"). To form the sentence "The book is meaningless.", we construct 책은 의미가 없습니다:
- 책은 = [Regarding the book,]
- 의미가 = [the meaning]
- 없습니다 = [it lacks]
Together this means "The book has no meaning." or "The book is meaningless.".
In a later section (Modifier I), you will learn how to form noun modifiers like English adjectives from Korean verbs.
References:
By mistake i clicked on continue botton but the main point is books are not meaningless
들 will be added before the particle if it's plural, but sometimes, depending on context, the singular form can refer to all of that object in general (like when you say lots of "fish" or lots of "sheep" to refer to more than one)
책은 means book or implies THE book, it shouldn't be books PLURAL if it doesnt have the plural marking 들. Books would be 책들
Actually, from what I learnt, I think 책은 can be plural... Under the right context of course:)
It's kind of like when you say "fish" in English. Of course, you could say fishes as a plural form, but you could also just say fish to refer to either an unspecified number of fish, or to refer to all fish in general. Of course, context still matters.
e.g. Fish is/are* meaningless 생선은(Fish) 의미가 없습니다(are meaningless) This sentence could also say "A fish is meaningless" so it refers to any/every fish.
- "Is" and "are" are pretty much the same in Korean so it doesn't matter.
Sorry if any explanations were bad. This is based on my understanding of it so if I made a mistake, please don't downvote me. Just correct me in a reply
'The'is not given in options instead of that 'a' is given so i had used 's'instead of the but again u are mentioning it wrong
I noticed at the end they have been using the same sound like "opshimida" what does this mean???
Because this is a general statement and not regarding a specific book ('the book' when adressing a specific book is often written as 'this book' in Korean) it doesn't need to be written as plural to be interpreted as such. This works with any statement you make that addresses the entirety of a type of thing (a general statement about schools but not your specific school, a general statement about cats but not any specific cat. etc.). Hope this makes sense!
Is there no differentiation, other than context, between singular and plural? (Ex. I wrote "the book..." but got it right, and it suggested that another acceptable answer is "books". How often does one actually use 들 to indicate plurality? Thanks!
how am i supposed to know when it's "books are meaningless " and when it's " the book is meaningless"
why would you put an example saying books are meaningless? are you guys implying that reading books are boring and meaningless to promote your online learning and business? seriously is annoying.
Just exactly b4 this sentence the sentence it showed was "Books are interesting" and then the next sentence is this :
은/는 is subject particle and it varies to syllables in a subject noun. For example if the noun ends with vowel the particle forms 는. But if it ends with consonant (or let's say Batchim: 받침) the particle forms 은.
e.g. 저는 (I am) 여기는 (Here is) 저기는 (there is)
이것은(this is) 저것은(that is) 제 이름은 (my name is)
I can't understand where "neun", "eun" and "ga" should be added. Will the meaning of the word change if we write "eun" in place of "neun"?
Beside "meaning," does the word 의미 (hanja: 意味) here also mean "interesting" by any chance? The equivalent of this word in Chinese (意味/意思) means both "meaning" and "interesting." Just curious.
I put down "The book is not meaningful" and it was marked correct. This sentence has a much different connotation in English than "Books are meaningless". I get why it can be both in Korean but in English, the distinction is really important between someone that doesn't think books are important at all, and someone remarking that just ONE book lacks meaning.
I thought 책은 의미가.... in the earlier sentence meant the book is meaningless but here the translation shows that the Books are meaningless....so how am i suppossed to know if it means books are or book is(how to know noun is sing. or plural?)
