-지만

RuleVerb/adjective stem + -jiman: marks contrast, "but / although."

Curiosity

How do you link a contrasting sentence in Korean, as in "these clothes are expensive but pretty"?

Intuition

-jiman is the hinge that grants the first clause, then flips in the second. Like English "but," it swings the two clauses in opposite directions. It attaches straight to the stem without changing shape.

Visualization

gada (dictionary) → ga (stem) → gajiman. -jiman attaches straight to the stem.

가다gadadictionary form

Essence

Stem + -jiman is batchim-independent (jakda→jakjiman). It can follow the past -eot- (gatjiman). With a noun it is (i)jiman (haksaengijiman). A related contrast is -nunde/-(eu)nde, but -jiman is the more direct "but."

Examples

이 옷은 비싸지만 예뻐요.

These clothes are expensive but pretty.

한국어는 어렵지만 재미있어요.

Korean is hard but fun.

비가 왔지만 우리는 나갔어요.

It rained, but we went out.

Mini-quiz

Attach the contrast -jiman to "jakda" (to be small).