174 words
1 minute
-네: Exclamatory Ending (Discovery)
2025-09-06
2025-09-08
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Example Sentences#

  1. “아이가 호랑이를 무서워하지 않네?”1
    “Oh, the baby isn’t scared of the tiger?”

    • 않다 is an auxiliary verb that makes the clause negative.
    • -네 is a sentence-ending particle expressing mild surprise or discovery through direct observation, voicing the speaker’s immediate acknowledgment of something perceived in the moment.
  2. “호랑이도 안 무서워하는 아기가 곶감은 무서워하네?1
    “So a baby who isn’t even scared of a tiger is afraid of a dried persimmon?

    • 무서워하다 means ‘to be scared of’. It is derived from the adjective 무섭다 (to be scary) using the pattern -어하다, which transforms adjectives into verbs to describe the feeling or perception of an emotion from an external viewpoint.
    • -네 is a sentence-ending particle expressing mild surprise or discovery through direct observation, voicing the speaker’s immediate acknowledgment of something perceived in the moment.

Footnotes#

  1. Sentence from The Tiger And The Dried Persimmon. 2

-네: Exclamatory Ending (Discovery)
https://koreanstorylab.com/posts/grammar/-네-exclamatory-ending-discovery/
Author
Korean Story Lab
Published at
2025-09-06
License
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0