# 돼는데요



## idialegre

In a "Let's Learn Korean" TV program I watch, they had the following exchange:

Customer: 휴대폰이 안 돼요.
Sales representative: 어떻게 안 돼는데요?

I can't figure out why the verb changes to  돼는데요. Why can't the question be  어떻게 안 돼요 ?

In general, I understand the ending -은데/-는데 when it is followed by a contrasting clause (so more or less as a substitute for 그런데), but when no clause follows, I don't understand what it means.

Any help is appreciated!


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## kenjoluma

Do you speak French? 
They usually put "mais (but)" in the beginning of sentence in order to express surprise or frustration. This custom is also found in English but it is not as broadly used as in French.

example) Mais oui! (But yes!)  Mais non! (But no!)  etc.

되다 > 되는데 can be explained this way. A customer says "My cell doesn't work" and a salesman says "But how?" Of course, this "but" is not an adversative. This expresses speaker's surprise demanding listener's reaction to it.

examples)
철수 좀 봐! 굉장히 멋있는데!  
Look at 철수, he looks good (isn't it?)

택시 기사: 손님, 어디로 가시는데요?
Taxi driver: Sir/Ma'am, where are you going? (waiting for your response, please?)

And your example, as well
휴대폰이 안 돼요.
어떻게 안 되는데요? 
http://krdic.naver.com/detail.nhn?docid=8156700


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## oloekis

idialegre said:


> In a "Let's Learn Korean" TV program I watch, they had the following exchange:
> 
> Customer: 휴대폰이 안 돼요.
> Sales representative: 어떻게 안 돼는데요?
> 
> I can't figure out why the verb changes to  돼는데요. Why can't the question be  어떻게 안 돼요 ?
> 
> In general, I understand the ending -은데/-는데 when it is followed by a contrasting clause (so more or less as a substitute for 그런데), but when no clause follows, I don't understand what it means.
> 
> Any help is appreciated!





Both "어떻게 안 돼요" and "어떻게 안 되는데요" express more or less same meaning. I think it can be the matter of one's way of speaking that differs from person to person.

Supposing that both answer was kindly said, if you just simply answer "어떻게 *안 돼요*?" to the "핸드폰이* 안 돼요*", you are just answering what should be asked in return by repeating "안 돼요". It's not harmful at all, yeah. But saying "어떻게 안 되는데요" does sound much more fluent and technical than "어떻게 안 돼요" when it's said by native Korean.


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## idialegre

Beautiful explanation, Kenjoluma. (Yes, I do speak French.) Thanks so much. Also to littlemonyou.


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## Sunbee

In the interrogative sentence like using '어떻게', we have normally intonation where the last part dropped.
'어떻게 안 되는데?' (or '어떻게 안 되는데요?' in polite expression) is the typical example.

But '어떻게 안 되요?' has two types of intonation.
When the last part drops, it has almost the same meaning as '어떻게 안 되는데요?'.(the difference between the two was explained by littlemonyou)

When the last part rises, the speaker says, "Is there anything you can do to fix it?". And the speaker is asking or begging you to do anything to fix the celluler phone.
Customer: 휴대폰이 안 되요.
Service Engineer: 완전히 고장 났는데요.
Customer: 어떻게 안 되요?


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## kenjoluma

Note that 되요 is incorrect, it's always 돼요.

-요 form always needs 아/어 in front of it, and 되 merged with 어 becomes 돼.
If you are confused, you can also simply say '되어요', which is exactly equivalent to '돼요'.


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## kartelite

되는데요 is just a softer way of saying 돼요 here. It's less direct, and in English would be like "So, what's wrong with it?" versus "How is it not working?"

Koreans end tons of sentences with 는데요 in spoken/somewhat formal situations. Ending sentences with the normal ending 해요/가요 over and over sounds stiff, and learning how to use the various endings naturally in conversation will help you sound a lot more native. Another very common one is ~는 거죠/거예요, I guess ~잖아요 you hear a lot as well...it gives a slightly different feeling but basically means the same thing.


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