"어머니는 눈치가 있게 물어봤어요."
Translation:The mother asked tactfully.
18 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
256
Both 묻다 & 물어보다 mean "To ask".
물어보다 is adopted in common usage for practical reasons. This is to avoid confusion between 묻다 (to ask) and 물다 (to bite).
Both 묻다 & 물다 are irregular verbs and have 물어 as a verb stem. So they share many conjugated forms.
V + 아/어/여 보다 (To consider V-ing) is an auxiliary expression usually added for politeness (especially when expressing a request). It does not really change the meaning of the main verb. This is why Koreans use it in this case. As said, it is all for practical reasons.
To stress that effort has been put into making a query i.e.
To try to ask = 물으려 하다 [Lit. To try by asking]
- 256
눈치있다 (vb) - have tact
눈치있는 (adj) - that have tact /tactful
눈치있게 (adv) - with tact / tactfully
눈치가 있게, or 눈치있게 can be used in front of someones acts. the trandlation it correlates to in here is tactfully, although i would use carefully. 그 사람은 눈치가 있게 자리를 떠납니다., for example, can be translated as the man moves out of a seat tactfully., or the man moves out of the place carefully.
- 863
As far as I understand it, 눈치 is a kind of situational awareness, meaning you know how to act within a certain social context. 눈치가 없다 would then describe a person who does not have this awareness and is thus perceived as being socially awkward.
Either "asked tactfully"or "tactfully asked" are both grammatically correct.
