있다, -고 있다

[kutsuwamushi]

As mentioned before before, Korean has two verbs meaning "to be." I covered 이다 and briefly mentioned 있다. 이다 can be thought of as something you are, and 있다 something you do.

For example, if I want to say "I'm at home," I would use 있다: 집에 있습니다. I'm not a house; I'm at my house. Does this make sense? I can dig up more examples if anyone wants them.

-고 있다 is a construction that can be added to an action verb to make it ongoing or habitual. Here are some examples from Using Korean:

학교에 오고 있다.
He's on his way to school.

한국에 살고 있습니다.
He's currently living in Korea.

아침으로 빵을 먹고 있습니다.
She's been eating bread for breakfast.

(Okay, I modified the last two to avoid the honorific forms, which might be too much for now...)

Comments

*delurks*

[intermezzo]

*thinks* Shouldn't that be 아침으로 in the last example?

Re: *delurks*

[kutsuwamushi]

Yep, that was a typo. Thanks for pointing it out!