🇰🇷 Lesson 11: Embedded Questions & Choices

You're standing at a bus stop in a city you don't know. You could ask a stranger 이 버스 시청 가요? — "Does this bus go to City Hall?" It's correct, and people will answer. But listen to how Koreans themselves ask:

The question has been folded inside another sentence: "Do you know whether this bus goes to City Hall?" That folding is gentler, more polite, and absolutely everywhere in Korean — at information desks, on the phone, in emails, in your own head (I wonder what I should eat…). This lesson teaches you how to fold questions with -(으)ㄴ/는지 and -(으)ㄹ지, and then how to offer and make choices: -거나, -든지, N(이)나 and 아무 N(이)나. Our theme: asking for information.

🧠 The Mental Model: A Question in a Pocket

Think of -지 as a pocket that holds a question. You take any question — 어디 살아요?, 비싸요?, 왜 늦었어요? — replace its ending with the right -지 form, and slip the pocket into a bigger sentence whose verb is about knowing, asking or wondering.

The shape of -지 comes straight from the noun modifiers you already know: verbs take -는, adjectives take -(으)ㄴ, and the future/uncertain version takes -(으)ㄹ.

Watch the usual suspects. ㄹ-stems drop ㄹ before ㄴ: 살다 → 사는지, 멀다 → 먼지, 길다 → 긴지. ㅎ-adjectives lose ㅎ: 어떻다 → 어떤지, 그렇다 → 그런지. ㅂ-adjectives change: 춥다 → 추운지, 어렵다 → 어려운지. And in speech, 뭐인지 → 뭔지, 누구인지 → 누군지.

🔍 Two Kinds of Pocket: "What/Where…" and "Whether…"

If the original question had a question word (어디, 뭐, 언제, 왜, 누구, 얼마, 어떻게), the pocket means "where / what / why …". If it was a yes/no question, the pocket means "whether …".

To make "whether or not" explicit, put both halves side by side:

The verbs that hold the pocket

The most common partners are 알다, 모르다, 궁금하다, 물어보다, 알아보다 (look into), 확인하다 (check), 기억하다 / 기억이 나다, 알려 주다, 고민하다 / 고민이다 (agonise over) and 정하다 / 결정하다 (decide). A particle can follow the pocket (어디 사는지를 물어봤어요, 뭐가 문제인지가 궁금해요), but in speech it's usually dropped.

🌏 Culture Note — 혹시 and the indirect request: Korean politeness often works by not asking directly. Compare the ladder: 화장실 어디예요? → 화장실이 어디에 있는지 아세요? → 혹시 화장실이 어디에 있는지 아세요? Each step adds distance and makes it easier for the other person to say "I don't know". 혹시 ("by any chance") is the magic softener; 실례지만 ("excuse me, but") opens the conversation with a stranger. The polite "no" in return is 잘 모르겠어요. 저도 여기 처음이라서요.

🔮 -(으)ㄹ지: Questions About the Future and Decisions

Use -(으)ㄹ지 when the question is about something that hasn't happened yet, or about a choice you still have to make. It's the ending of indecision:

😲 Two Special Uses You'll Hear Daily

1. 얼마나 -는지 몰라요: "You have no idea how…!"

Literally "I don't know how much it is…", but it actually means the opposite: it's incredibly so. It's one of the most expressive patterns in everyday Korean.

2. -는지 as a guessed cause

A -지 clause can also sit at the start of a sentence as the speaker's guess about the reason for what follows: "maybe because…, I guess".

🔀 Choices I: "Or" — N(이)나, -거나, 또는, 아니면

English has one "or". Korean picks a different word depending on what it's connecting:

Two points trip learners up. First, when you ask someone to choose between two options, use 아니면 between two full questions, not -거나 — -거나 describes alternatives, it doesn't ask for a decision. Second, -거나 하다 means "do things like…": 심심하면 게임을 하거나 해요 ("When I'm bored I play games or something").

The other two jobs of (이)나

🎲 Choices II: -든지 — "Whichever, Whatever"

-든지 (also -든가, and short -든) presents options as equally acceptable — the speaker doesn't mind which. That makes it perfect for offering freedom, and for "no matter what/where/who".

Handy set words: 언제든지 (any time), 어디든지 (anywhere), 누구든지 (anyone), 뭐든지 (anything).

🤷 아무 N(이)나: "Any N at All"

아무 means "any (at all), no particular one". With (이)나 it means "any … you like"; with 도 plus a negative it means "no … at all" (nobody, nothing, nowhere):

Note the spellings: 아무거나 (from 아무것이나) and 아무것도 are written as one word; 아무 데나, 아무 때나 have a space.

누구나 vs 아무나, 언제나 vs 아무 때나

🌏 Culture Note — the "아무거나" problem: Ask a Korean friend 뭐 먹을래? and there's a good chance they'll answer 아무거나. ("Anything.") Then you suggest something and they say, "Hmm, not that…" This is such a well-known joke that some restaurants have put a dish called 아무거나 on the menu, and drinks companies have sold a drink by that name. If you want to be helpful rather than polite-but-vague, give a hint: 매운 것만 아니면 아무거나 괜찮아요 ("Anything's fine, as long as it's not spicy").

💬 Dialogue: At the International Office

Notice that almost every one of Maria's questions is embedded: 언제까지 해야 하는지 알고 싶어서, 어디에서 만드는지 아세요?, 뭐뭐 필요한지도, 언제 시작하는지 알 수 있을까요? That's what makes her sound polite and fluent. The 뭐뭐 in 뭐뭐 필요한지 is a common spoken way of saying "which things (plural)".

📰 Reading: 오늘 점심 뭐 먹지?

Embedded questions can feel like a lot of machinery for something English does with one word. Give it a week of use and they'll start coming out on their own — every learner who now says 혹시 … 아세요? without thinking once had to build it piece by piece.

✏️ Practice

🧠 Check Your Understanding

❓ Common Questions

🔮 Looking Ahead

You can now ask for information politely and talk about choices. In Lesson 12: Helper Verbs, you'll learn the small verbs that attach after a main verb and add attitude, aftermath and time: -아 버리다 and -고 말다 ("ended up / done and gone"), -아 놓다/두다 ("do in advance"), -아 있다 vs -고 있다 ("is in a state" vs "is doing"), -아지다 ("become"), and -아 가다/오다 (change over time).