# 건 아니건 간에



## Mallarme

건 아니건 간에

그런데 의외로 환자_건 *아니건 간에*_ 피부가 건강 유지에 얼마나 중요한지를 모르고 있는 사람이 많은 것 같다.


Does it mean "whether ______ or not"? So, here "whether a patient or not"?  한국말로 설명하셔도 됩니다.  고맙습니다!


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## kenjoluma

네, 맞습니다.

"No matter if it is a patient or someone else, there are many people who do not understand the importance..."
이 정도로 해석할 수 있지 않을까요? 영어로 굳이 옮기려고 하니 조금 이상해지네요.

-건(-거나) http://krdic.naver.com/detail.nhn?docid=1558200
-간(間)에 http://krdic.naver.com/detail.nhn?docid=556000 (see #3)

이 두 개가 어우러져 no matter whether it is A or B 와 비슷한 뜻을 만들어냅니다.


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## Mallarme

네, 해석할 수 있습니다.  
특히 링크가 도움됩니다.정말 고맙스니다!


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## vientito

I found an example :보기 싫건 나가렴.= 보기 싫거나 [말거나] 

it seems that the second negation part can be dropped off as well 간에 seems optional too.  In english, whether.. or not.. has similar feature the "or not" part is optional.

So is it common to omit the negation part in common usage?


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## kenjoluma

@vientito

보기 싫건 나가렴, to me, looks incorrect. Maybe 보기 싫거든, 나가렴, no?


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## vientito

interesting I basically copy and paste it from this link

http://www.koreangrammaticalforms.com/entry.php?eid=0000000037

first example


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## kenjoluma

vientito said:


> interesting I basically copy and paste it from this link
> 
> http://www.koreangrammaticalforms.com/entry.php?eid=0000000037
> 
> first example



I still don't think this is... usual. Sounds a little peculiar.
Anyone who wants to contribute to this?


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## priscillaluna

보기 싫*건* 나가렴.= 보기 싫거나 [말거나] (복덕방 )
If  you hate the sight of it, then leave. 

According to the English meaning the Korean should be 보기 싫거든.
Whether you hate the sight of it or not, should be 보기 싫던 말던.

In my opinion, 보기 싫건 is incorrect.


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## 조금만

Another thread I crave indulgence for bumping in the hope of helping to tease out some of the native speakers' insights so we learners can get a firmer hold on them...

Though I'm far from being a native speaker, that first example on the webpage vientito cites in post #6 above strikes me on the basis of my experience of reading and listening to the language as rather odd, especially when it's supposed to mean "If ... then". It doesn't seem to illustrate or even fit in with either the heading of the page or the rest of the examples. 

I respect a native speaker's judgement that the construction 보기 싫건 ... in itself seems incorrect, but to me it seems that the real root of the odditiy in that example is the way that construction is followed by an imperative, while claiming that the resulting combination has the sense "if you don't like... then do..."  That strikes me as at odds with the way the construction is used elsewhere in Korean, and indeed as a poor fit with the discursive explanation accompanying the examples on that web page.

That explanation refers, in terms borrowed without attribution from Samuel Martin's _Reference Grammar of Korean _(Tokyo 1992) p. 603 to a pattern "showing indifference toward a choice between two conflicting actions or states". But Martin uses that description only for his second group of examples of what he terms this "tentative adversative" construction, where both "conflicting actions or states" are explicitly present in two parallel verbs or adjectives, both of which are marked with 건/거나. 

However, in Martin's first group of examples of this construction in use, there is only one verb or adjective marked with 건/거나, and he glosses this usage as equivalent to "what-( when-, where-, how-)ever". But on the web page vientito pointed us to, that usage isn't separately identified or remarked on. It is represented, without comment or explanation, by that first example alone, in a construction to which neither the  discursive explanation or the main heading make any reference.

But supposing that example were to be
보기 싫건 (or 싫거나) 상관없다, with the sense "Whether you dislike seeing it (or not) doesn't matter". Does that sound acceptable (if maybe somewhat text-bookishly strained) to native speakers here?

I deliberately put the optional (or not) into my gloss there, because as that page implies in its heading and vientito observes in his comment, the Korean "single" 건/거나 construction is frequently followed by an optional 간에, corresponding to that implied "or not" in English and marking the "missing alternative" which the Korean construction also implies. 

Yeon and Brown in their _Korean. A Comprehensive Grammar_ (London and NY, 2011) pp. 302-3, section 6.4.1 give several examples of this "single"  건/거나 construction where the alternative is left unstated but is nevertheless implicitly present (or is marked by a 간에 placeholder).

But I don't think the example on the web page referred to above is actually a useful ilustration of that point, nor is it properly explained there.


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