"우리는 무거운 책을 읽고 있어요."

Translation: We are reading a heavy book.

[Linda105503]

isnt "We read a heavy book" acceptable too. If not, why not

[nleconte]

-고 있어요 is most often translated with the present continuous tense in English. Nevertheless, with context, other translations might be acceptable too.

[SabianF]

Continuous tense as in... progressive tense?

[nleconte]

Exactly. The -ing form if you want :)

In English, progressive and continuous tenses seem to be the same. I didn't know about this distinction in other languages...

[Linda105503]

i agree. im trying to figure out what the difference is. It seems that someone who made this took read as being the past tense.

[t4bsVfbZ]

the heavy book should be acceptable

[ejcasey]

Agree. Correction submitted 12/21/17

[jottomatte]

Can 무거운 책을 also be used to mean a heavy book i.e. emotionally draining book like in English? Or is it only used for weight of an item in Korean?

[s.kwon]

i was wondering the same thing and looked it up. naver says 무겁다 can also mean "serious", "grave" and "important", those meanings were not the first to come up, so i assume there are better ways to express them, but they are there. so there's that...

i also stumbled over the idiom 입이 무겁다 (heavy mouth) which means one can hold secrets well, so there's also this fun fact

[SunBern]

Does 무거운 책 also mean "a thick book"?

[KatherineSakurai]

I wonder if it means "heavy" by the content or weight.

[SabianF]

Lol