-๊ธฐ๋ก ํ๋ค: How to Express Decisions in Korean
Master the TOPIK grammar -๊ธฐ๋ก ํ๋ค to express firm decisions. Learn the difference from -๋ ค๊ณ ํ๋ค with examples and a mini-quiz.
4/13/2026, 12:54:16 AM
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Master the TOPIK grammar -๊ธฐ๋ก ํ๋ค to express firm decisions. Learn the difference from -๋ ค๊ณ ํ๋ค with examples and a mini-quiz.
Learn how to use ์ ๋ค and ๋ฒ๋ค correctly in Korean. Master essential clothing verbs for TOPIK and daily life with our guide and quiz.
Learn how to use -์ผ and -์ด์ผ for casual Korean sentences. Master the batchim rule to tease your friends correctly and avoid common mistakes!
Master the casual endings -์ผ and -์ด์ผ to tease your Korean friends. Learn the 'tease-meter', avoid common mistakes, and practice with a quiz!
Master the TOPIK II grammar -๊ธฐ ๋ง๋ จ์ด๋ค to describe natural laws and inevitable results. Learn how it differs from -๊ฒ ๋ปํ๋ค in this guide.
Learn how to use -๊ธฐ๋ก ํ๋ค to talk about plans and resolutions without confusing it for simple intentions.
Many learners say ๋ด์ผ๋ถํฐ ์ด๋ํ๊ธฐ๋ก ํด์naeilbuteo undonghagiro haeyo when they mean they've already made the choice. In Korean, if the decision is already made, you must use the past tense ํ์ด์haesseoyo.
Wrong: ์น๊ตฌ๋ ์ํ๋ฅผ ๋ณด๊ธฐ๋ก ํด์.chingurang yeonghwareul bogiro haeyo. (I decide to watch a movie with a friend - sounds like a general habit or a weirdly present-tense declaration).
Right: ์น๊ตฌ๋ ์ํ๋ฅผ ๋ณด๊ธฐ๋ก ํ์ด์.chingurang yeonghwareul bogiro haesseoyo. (I decided/planned to watch a movie with a friend).
Attach -๊ธฐ๋ก ํ๋ค-giro hada directly to the verb stem. It does not matter if the stem ends in a vowel or a consonant.
๊ฐ๋คgada โ ๊ฐ๊ธฐ๋ก ํ๋คgagiro hada (Decide to go)๋จน๋คmeokda โ ๋จน๊ธฐ๋ก ํ๋คmeokgiro hada (Decide to eat)This pattern indicates that a decision has been reached after deliberation or an agreement with others. It is most commonly used in the past tense -๊ธฐ๋ก ํ๋ค-giro haetda because the act of "deciding" usually happened before the moment of speaking.
It is neutral and safe for all contexts, from business meetings to casual chats with friends.
์ฌํด๋ ํ๊ตญ์ด ๊ณต๋ถ๋ฅผ ์ด์ฌํ ํ๊ธฐ๋ก ํ์ด์.olhaeneun hangugeo gongbureul yeolsimhi hagiro haesseoyo. โ I decided to study Korean hard this year.์ฐ๋ฆฌ ๋ด์ผ 7์์ ๋ง๋๊ธฐ๋ก ํ์ด์.uri naeil 7sie mannagiro haesseoyo. โ We agreed to meet at 7 o'clock tomorrow.๊ฑด๊ฐ์ ์ํด์ ๋งค์ผ ์ด๋ํ๊ธฐ๋ก ํ์ด์.geongaeul wihaeseo maeil undonghagiro haesseoyo. โ I decided to exercise every day for my health.
-๋ ค๊ณ ํ๋ค-ryeogo hada (e.g., ์ฌ๋ ค๊ณ ํ๋คsaryeogo hada)-์ผ๋ ค๊ณ ํ๋ค-euryeogo hada (e.g., ์ฝ์ผ๋ ค๊ณ ํ๋คilgeuryeogo hada)Unlike -๊ธฐ๋ก ํ๋ค-giro hada, which implies a fixed decision or appointment, -๋ ค๊ณ ํ๋ค-ryeogo hada expresses a state of mind or a loose intention. It's the difference between "I've decided to" and "I'm planning to/thinking of."
Wrong: ์น๊ตฌ๋ ์ฝ์์ ์ก์ผ๋ ค๊ณ ํ์ด์.chingurang yaksogeul jabeuryeogo haesseoyo. (I was intending to make an appointment - implies you didn't actually do it).
Right: ์น๊ตฌ๋ ์ฝ์์ ์ก๊ธฐ๋ก ํ์ด์.chingurang yaksogeul japgiro haesseoyo. (I decided/agreed to make an appointment).
์ด๋ฒ ์ฃผ๋ง์ ์ฌ๋ ค๊ณ ํด์.ibeon jumare swiryeogo haeyo. โ I'm planning to rest this weekend.์ ์ฐจ๋ฅผ ์ฌ๋ ค๊ณ ํด์.sae chareul saryeogo haeyo. โ I'm thinking of buying a new car.ํ๊ตญ ์์์ ๋ง๋ค๋ ค๊ณ ํด์.hanguk eumsigeul mandeulryeogo haeyo. โ I intend to make Korean food.-๊ธฐ๋ก ํ๋ค-giro haetda.-๊ธฐ๋ก ํ๋ค-giro haetda.-๋ ค๊ณ ํ๋ค-ryeogo hada.Notes:
-๊ธฐ๋ก ํ์ด์-giro haesseoyo is used because meeting a friend involves a social agreement or a fixed plan.-๋ ค๊ณ ํด์-ryeogo haeyo is correct because the speaker mentions they are "not sure yet," indicating a loose intention rather than a finalized decision.-๊ธฐ๋ก ํ์ด์-giro haesseoyo is the standard way to express a firm personal resolution or a decision already made.Practice by converting these 5 verbs into the -๊ธฐ๋ก ํ๋ค-giro haetda (decided to) form to describe your weekend plans:
์ง์์ ์ฌ๋คjibeseo swida (To rest at home)์น๊ตฌ๋ฅผ ๋ง๋๋คchingureul mannada (To meet a friend)ํ๊ตญ์ด๋ฅผ ๊ณต๋ถํ๋คhangugeoreul gongbuhada (To study Korean)์ํ๋ฅผ ๋ณด๋คyeonghwareul boda (To watch a movie)์ผ์ฐ ์๋คiljjik jada (To sleep early)๋ด๋ฐฐ๋ฅผ ๋๊ธฐ๋ก ํด์.dambaereul kkeungiro haeyo. (I decide to quit smoking - sounds like a suggestion to yourself).
Right: ๋ด๋ฐฐ๋ฅผ ๋๊ธฐ๋ก ํ์ด์.dambaereul kkeungiro haesseoyo. (I have decided to quit smoking).๋น๊ฐ ์ค๊ธฐ๋ก ํ์ด์.biga ogiro haesseoyo. (It decided to rain).
Right: ๋น๊ฐ ์จ๋ค๊ณ ํ์ด์.biga ondago haesseoyo. (They said it would rain). Note: Nature cannot "decide" using this grammar.์ด์ ๊ณต๋ถํ๊ธฐ๋ก ํด์.eoje gongbuhagiro haeyo. (Tense mismatch).
Right: ์ด์ ๊ณต๋ถํ๊ธฐ๋ก ํ์ด์.eoje gongbuhagiro haesseoyo.๋ถ๋ชจ๋๊ป ๋น๋ฐ๋ก ํ๊ธฐ๋ก ํ์ด์.bumonimkke bimilro hagiro haesseoyo. โ I decided to keep it a secret from my parents.์กธ์
ํ์ ์ทจ์งํ๊ธฐ๋ก ํ์ด์.joreop hue chwijikhagiro haesseoyo. โ I decided to get a job after graduation.์ผ์ฐ ์๋ ค๊ณ ํ์ง๋ง ๋ชป ์ค์ด์.iljjik jaryeogo haetjiman mot jasseoyo.์ด์ ๋นผ๋ ค๊ณ ์ด๋์ ์์ํ์ด์.sareul ppaeryeogo undoeul sijakhaesseoyo. โ I started exercising to (intending to) lose weight.