"개구리가 못생겼습니다."
Translation:The frog is ugly.
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I just read this very interesting article about the culture of beauty in Korea. It focuses on the etymology of 못생기다, so make sure to check it out ;)
(fyi, this is one of the most interesting blogs around about Korean language, slang and culture).
Here, just gotta remove the url parameters: http://koreanforinternauts.blogspot.com/2017/12/98-youre-f-ugly.html
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Could you (or anyone else who sees this while using a desktop) by any chance tell me the name of the blog? The link refuses to open :(
Think of it as "The frog turned out ugly." There are many similar instances in the language. After eating, "배가 불렀습니다. "OK" is usually expressed eiher in the past or the future, 알았다 or 알겠다, but rarely in the present. "No thanks," "don't bother," "Don't even go there" can all be expressed by 됐다.
Yes I always think of 생기다 (in the context of attractiveness) as "to be formed". So here I think of it as meaning something like "the frog was formed badly"
Can anyone explain why this is past tense in Korean but present tense in English?
This verb has to be put in the past tense.
I copy paste from here.
Yes. It's because they are derived from the verb 잘/못 + 생기다. 생기다 = for something to happen that didn't happen, for something to appear in a certain way.
잘/못생기다, it takes the 2nd meaning. For a guy to look good/bad, he already has to appear in a certain way, so the past tense is used. It already has to have happened.
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in additon I came across something like that: Verb - 못생기다 to be or become ugly, unattractive !!! Always used in past tense, meaning “to be ugly”. It has been reclassified as a verb in 2017 by the National Institute of Korean Language. I hope that is interesting too
How would you say "the frog WAS ugly", do you need to conjugate the verb again? Or is the same than in present?
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I put the ugly frog but it is marked wrong but I don't know why. Are they not the same meaning?