​Adjective + 아/어지다 [Korean Grammar] 

Let’s learn how to use Korean grammar “Adjective + 아/어지다” and make sentences with some examples.

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

USE:

Adjective + 아/어지다 Korean grammar pattern is used to say “to get or become ….”.

It’s used when the speaker wants to express change in state/quality of something over a time.

For example, if you want to say that the weather became good. Or cloths got dirty.

If you want to say that someone is slim, you can use 날씬해요. But let’s say you want to say that someone became got slim (implying the person was not slim before). This is the case where we would need the 아/어지다 grammar pattern. Let’s see how conjugation will work.

First, you will have to remove 다 from 날씬하다. Then 날씬하 stem is left. And then, look at the last vowel in the stem. In the 날씬하, it is ending with 하.

According to the conjugation rule, when the adjective ends with 하, we add 해지다.

So it becomes 날씬해지다. We will say 날씬해졌어요 to say that someone became/got slim.

Remember that usually this grammar is used in past tense but if you want to say that someone/something is becoming/getting ..adj.., you can also use present tense conjugation i.e. 날씬해져요.

EXAMPLE SENTENCES:

• 날씨가 더 시원해져요. (The weather is getting cooler.)
• 봄 끝나고 날씨가 더워졌어요. (Weather has become hot after spring.)
• 민수가 날씬해졌어요. (Minsu has become slimmer.)
• 옛날에는 집이 멀었는데 이사해서 가까워졌어요. (Earlier my house used to be far, but it became closer since I moved).

NOTE:

• The 아/어지다 expression is used with adjectives only and never with verbs. 
• 아/어졌어요 is used to express the change of state happened in the past.
•  아/어져요 is used to express the change of state happened in the present or when a particular action is performed.