Expression of the Week

Lee Bo-mi：어머니, 민하랑 한 방 쓰시기 불편하지 않으세요？ 

이제 민하도 다 커 가는데.　

Mother, isn’t it uncomfortable for you to share a room with Min-ha? Min-ha’s getting quite big now. 

Kim Mal-bun：아이고, 불편하면 어쩌. 뭐 방법이 있어？

What can I do about it? Is there any other way?

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불편하지 않으세요? (isn’t it uncomfortable?)

불편하다 – adj. inconvenient or uncomfortable as in the body or mind is in an uncomfortable or painful state 

~지 않다 – auxiliary adjective used to the state depicted by preceding adjective

Casual – 불편하지 않아?

Semi-polite – 불편하지 않아요?

Polite – 불편하지 않으세요?

>>[불편하다] means uncomfortable or inconvenient and adding [~지 않다] turns it into the negative form. Therefore, [불편하지 않다] literally means “not uncomfortable” or in other words “comfortable.”

>>Adding [~(으)세요?] turns [불편하지 않다] into a question form in a polite way. Therefore, [불편하지 않으세요?] is literally asking someone if something is not inconvenient or uncomfortable to them.

>> Bo-mi is using the term [어머니] which means “mother” when speaking to her mother-in-law or [시어머니] as according to Korean custom. Korean women would not use [시어머니] when addressing their mother-in-law and use [어머니] or the more honorific term [어머님].