"하늘에 구름이 꼈어."
Translation:There are clouds in the sky.
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1149
You can, but it's more like 'There are clouds in the sky' rather than 'It's cloudy'.
270
Of course.
하늘에 구름이 꼈습니다 is just a pictorial way of saying "The sky clouded over/ (is/was) clouding over"
Worth noting:
The sky is cloudy/It's overcast = 하늘이 흐립니다.
[ 흐리다 used for weather, means to be overcast ].
1939
The words for cloud 구름 shadow 그림자 and shade그늘 share similar characters. Can somebody explain the etymology?
I'm no expert so take this with a grain of salt but they might be related through Hanja - the Hanja equivalent to 그늘 is 陰 which as you can see includes the character 云, an archaic word for 'cloud'. Considering how some radicals in Chinese characters influence how a word is pronounced, this might explain why they sound similar? As for 그림자, the Hanja doesn't seem to resemble either word, but I did find someone claiming that the 그ㄹ part originally meant 'sun' so maybe there's a connection there.
970
I suppose you could say there is a cloud in the sky. However, that is a rare occurrence; usually we see more than one cloud. :)
270
구름이 끼다 is a clausal adjective which literally means (구름이) clouds (끼다) are covering/filling up. So,
하늘에 구름이 껴. clouds are (currently, continuously) filling up the sky => There are 'being' clouds in the sky. (current state)
하늘에 구름이 꼈어. clouds have been (may still be) filling up the sky => There are clouds in the sky. (existing state)
하늘에 구름이 꼈었어. clouds were (no longer are) filling up the sky => There were/had been clouds in the sky. (past state)
1014
Is it wrong to translate this as "the sky got cloudy" or "the sky clouded over", or would you say that in a different way?
270
(1) It's idiomatic.
~이/가 끼다 (intransitive verb) = be shrouded in; be covered with [ => object complement has to be marked with 이/가.]
"구름이 꼈어." (idiom) = be shrouded in clouds
하늘에 구름이 꼈어. = [Lit.] Over the sky, it is shrouded in clouds
= The sky is shrouded in clouds
=> Clouds shrouded over the sky (by inference)
(2) The sky clouded over / became cloudy or overcast = 하늘이 흐려졌어.
[from 흐려지다 (a reflexive verb) = get cloudy; overcast; bleary...]
1014
thank you for your explanation! yes i guess i'll have to remember it's idiomatic. the confusing bit for me is the past tense – i would guess if "끼다" is "to be shrouded", "꼈어" should be "was shrouded"...
270
끼다 = be shrouded
껴 = is [being] shrouded = is shrouding => current occurence
꼈어 = (is/has been) shrouded => existing (continuing) occurence
꼈었어 = (was) shrouded => past (complete) occurence.
Few points to keep in mind:
▪Time of speech = moment when the statement is made
▪Korean simple past tense implies the event (action/state) happened before the time of speech. It does not necessarily mean the event is complete [ =The completion factor is irrelevant.] => open-ended past tense.
▪Korean 'pluperfect' on the other hand describes a complete event in the past. [The completion factor is guaranteed].