‘이나’와 ‘이라도’에 대하여

A Study on the Meaning of ‘이나’ and ‘이라도’

One of the most characteristic things of Korean is the variety of endings and particles. Korean could express their diverse feelings freely and deeply with these particles. However foreigners who study Korean as a second language or foreign language have difficulties in learning various particles. There are ‘이나’ and ‘이라도’ which are difficult to learn the differences for foreigners who study Korean as a second language or foreign language. It is hard to tell out the difference between ‘이나’ and ‘이라 도’ for KSL student because ‘이나’ and ‘이라도’ seem to be occurred in similar situation. Even Korean who has no difficulty in speaking ‘이나’ and ‘이 라도’ could not explain the differences between ‘이나’ and ‘이라도’. To understand differences between ‘이나’ and ‘이라도’, we should know the “hidden story” about ‘이나’ and ‘이라도’. The meanings of ‘이나’ and ‘이라도’ are differentiated according to the situation which is related with selection and to the attitude of speaker. Usually ‘이나’ and ‘이라도’ are used in the situation related with selection. But ‘이라 도’ is not acceptable if it is introduced as a examples in the text or context beforehand. ‘이나’ suggests a certain thing or certain action instead of other thing of other action. ‘이라도’ suggests a certain thing or a certain action even if it is not the best option. Because that is better than nothing. Usually ‘이나’ suggests ‘to stop something and to do other’, and ‘이라도’ suggests to do something instead of doing nothing. ‘이나’ doesn’t give any choice to listeners but ‘이라도’ gives choices to listeners. And a certain thing or a certain action with ‘이라도’ is regarded more valuable than a certain thing or a certain action with ‘이나’. We could say that all of these are the hidden story of ‘이나’ and ‘이라도’. To speak these particles properly and exactly, the KSL students should know where these differences comes from, that is to say “hidden story”.