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- "저는 걸어서 가요."
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Im so confused. Where did 'on foot' come from? Doesn't it literally say "I go while walking" ??
I go by foot should be right. "I'm going" would have to use "가고 있어요"
From what i understand it can be both~ like 뭐해요? Is both "what do you do?" And "what are you doing?"
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From what I know, 발 means foot. I think this comes from 걷다 for walking, which conjugates to 걸어요, + 서 for and then.
But that implies a literal translation of:
I walk and then I go.
Maybe it's better as:
I walk so [in order that] I go.
Sounds pretty idiomatic?
Any idea why "I walk and then I go" isn't accepted? And how did the "on foot" part come about in the sentence?
May 2019 edit: Wanted to answer my own question. Basically, you can just think of 걸어서 as a word that means "by walking on foot", and less of it as something with the 서 grammatical principle. You can put it together with 가다 to become 걸어서 가다 to mean to go [by walking] on foot.
February 2020 edit: I wanted to update my previous edit by saying that there's more than 1 usage of 아/어서. The first that most people know is the "beacause/so" usage, aka "cause and effect". The second usage that most people know of is the "and then" usage. However, there is another usage, which is unrelated to those two, which is as an ending to indicate the "ways or means" something is done. (dictionary entry) The 아/어서 being used in 걸어서 is the third usage, thus unrelated to "so/because" or "and then". Rather, it would mean "by way/means of walking".
Bless on ya mate, so do you mean that grammatical principle of 걷다(instant form)–>걸어요(polite speech form)–>걸어서(according a rule of adding conjuct 서, we drop 요and attach 서 instead to get any verb+conjuct -"and then/and so) doesn't work at this point, so we're supposed to just memorize it as an idiom which means "(by walking) on foot" and not "walk and then" as we consider it literally? If it's so then i'd like to know how much there are cases like that ahead
Correct, think less of it literally (cuz what does "walk and then go" even mean?). There aren't many cases of these, so don't worry about it too much.
"걷다 is "to walk". "가다" is "to go". They can be combined into" 걸어서 가다" to become "to go on foot".
It is 아서 if the last vowel 아/오, or 어서 if the last vowel 어/우/이
가다 - 가서 보다 - 봐서 걷다 - 걸어서 마시다 - 마셔서
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It is on the "Tips and notes" for this lesson. For 서 you need to get the 해요 form of the verb and drop 요, adding 서 after that. 서 meaning "and then"/"and so" (sequence of events).
For my own memory jog, I told myself:
My car is broke in a ditch near the road. I do not have a spare bike in the trunk. No wheels, so I go on foot. Je vais au pied.
