# -어 하다.



## wonlon

I encountered the structure *-어 하다  *in my book.

가: 민수 씨가 요즘 많이 힘들*어 해요*.
나: 친하게 지내던 친구조차도 그를 떠났거든요.

What is the function and meaning of this structure?
And hence what does the first sentence mean?


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## terredepomme

feel as 힘들다. ex) 재밌어 하다 = feel as 재밌다


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## wonlon

日本語で　どの文型に　当たりますか。


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## kenjoluma

1. 
힘들다 is adjective
Unlike 힘들다, 힘들어 하다 is a verb, therefore it can have an objective.

cf) 공부하는 것을 힘들어 하다.


2. 
When you plainly use an _emotional_ adjective, it generally means it is about your feelings.
저 사람은 참 피곤해. (NOTE - Don't translate this "That person is tired". It is "I feel so tired to deal with that person")
민수 씨가 참 힘들어. (NOTE - Don't translate this "Mr. Minsu has some difficulty". It is "I feel so difficult to deal with Mr. Minsu")

In order to avoid confusion, you should use "-어 하다" to make it look more 'objective', hence it is not your emotion, but an objective observation.

민수 씨가 참 힘들어 해. (Mr. Minsu is undergoing some difficulty)


3.
You asked for Japanese examples. I think I can give you -たい vs. -たがる. I know it's not perfectly equivalent. But if you see:
韓国に行きたい 
한국에 가고 싶다 
(It's about a speaker's emotion, wish, etc)

韓国に行きたがる
한국에 가고 싶*어하다*
(It's not about a speaker's emotion. It's a speaker's observation on someone else)


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## wonlon

kenjoluma said:


> 1.
> 힘들다 is adjective
> Unlike 힘들다, 힘들어 하다 is a verb, therefore it can have an objective.
> 
> cf) 공부하는 것을 힘들어 하다.


Is 힘들다 an adjective or intransitive verb (자동사)?
http://krdic.naver.com/detail.nhn?docid=44030300 says it is an adjective, elsewhere
http://jpdic.naver.com/entry_krjp.nhn?entryId=98196 says it is an intransitive verb.
I don't know if this really matters. But should we say that this pattern does not just include adjective but also some verbs?

By the way, how do you translate "공부하는 것을 힘들어 하다."?  I think it means "S/he feels that his/her studies are hard / heavy."



kenjoluma said:


> 2.
> When you plainly use an _emotional_ adjective, it generally means it is about your feelings.
> 저 사람은 참 피곤해. (NOTE - Don't translate this "That person is tired". It is "I feel so tired to deal with that person")
> 민수 씨가 참 힘들어. (NOTE - Don't translate this "Mr. Minsu has some difficulty". It is "I feel so difficult to deal with Mr. Minsu")
> 
> In order to avoid confusion, you should use "-어 하다" to make it look more 'objective', hence it is not your emotion, but an objective observation.
> 
> 민수 씨가 참 힘들어 해. (Mr. Minsu is undergoing some difficulty)
> 
> 
> 3.
> You asked for Japanese examples. I think I can give you -たい vs. -たがる. I know it's not perfectly equivalent. But if you see:
> 韓国に行きたい
> 한국에 가고 싶다
> (It's about a speaker's emotion, wish, etc)
> 
> 韓国に行きたがる
> 한국에 가고 싶*어하다*
> (It's not about a speaker's emotion. It's a speaker's observation on someone else)



I check out がる in my Japanese grammar book and it quite agrees with the function of "어 하다" that you mentioned; an objective feeling about someone else's emotion. 
Adj. stem + がる
Verb stem + たがる

The resulting verb carries an object indicated by を, which means that it is a transitive verb.
Is it also true in Korean that the resulting verb is a 타동사?


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## kenjoluma

1. 힘들다 is an adjective. Period.
I advise you not to use the Korean-Japanese dictionary on NAVER. It is designed for Korean people studying Japanese. It is not for you.
If you want to make it a verb, you can switch it to 힘들이다. You can see all the examples under the 'verb' category in that dictionary use '힘들이다', not '힘들다'.

2. 공부하는 것을 힘들어 하다 is exactly what you think it means.

3. It's not always transitive verb. For example, '한국에 가고 싶어하다' doesn't have a "direct" object. 
I think it would be not too difficult for you to tell which one becomes transitive verb and which one doesn't. I believe it is quite intuitive.

4. I need to correct some of the things above. It's not all the emotional adjectives that apply to this 'my emotion vs. the third person's emotion' rule. So please be careful.
민수 씨가 참 힘들어 can be "Mr. Minsu is tired". In THEORY, it's possible. But it's too ambiguous. We Koreans don't say like that.
Again, it's not a rule. It's more like a habitual usage for clarification.


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## wonlon

What about 나는 한식을 *좋아해요*?
This time, it is about the speaker, not a third person's feeling.


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## kenjoluma

wonlon said:


> What about 나는 한식을 *좋아해요*?
> This time, it is about the speaker, not a third person's feeling.




1. Objectivity vs. Subjectivity

You see, there is '나는'. The subject is clear in this sentence, so there is no question about it.
It is to make it more 'objective' therefore more likely to describe 'someone else', but it doesn't necessarily have to be about 'someone else'.
However, if you delete the subject, it can be 'ambiguous'. 

한식을 좋아하다. (Who? It has sense of objectivity, therefore it is more likely to be about 2nd or 3rd person's taste which the speaker has observed. But you never know. Gotta look up the context.)

There are some examples:

철수는 한식을 좋아한다. (Correct)
철수는 한식을 좋다. (Not correct: 좋다 is an adjective, therefore cannot carry -을/를)
철수는 한식이 좋다. (Strange: 철수 is a third person. But this emotional adjective '좋다' seems 'subjective', not objective enough to describe someone else's emotion)


Of course, in a literature with third-person narrative view, which means the writer knows how everybody feels about everything, you will encounter very often the sentence like this:

철수는 한식이 좋았다.


But you see, it is a very strange thing to say in real life. And you know why, now.


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## wildsunflower

wonlon said:


> What about 나는 한식을 *좋아해요*?
> This time, it is about the speaker, not a third person's feeling.



Following the rule of *-어 하다*, it will have to be 좋아해 하다. But, it will sound a bit strange. Usually you would use a verb + "-어 하다" for your thoughts about someone else.


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