– 는 바람에 Grammar Lesson – “because”
Very much similar to -느라고, the -는 바람에 grammar pattern is used to express cause or reason to a negative or undesirable result or consequence. There are some distinct differences between these two structures though, and we will look into those further down this post.
비가 오는 바람에 옷이 다 젖었다
It rained and my clothes got soaked
Usage
| AVST + 는 바람에 | Action Verb Stems ending with consonants or vowels. |
| 하다 | 하는 바람에 |
| 오다 | 오는 바람에 |
| 닫다 | 닫는 바람에 |
| 가다 | 가는 바람에 |
| 먹다 | 먹는 바람에 |
Examples
화산이 터지는 바람에 3명이 사망했다.
= 3 people were killed on the account of the volcano erupting.
사고가 나는 바람에 늦었다.
= I was late because of an accident.
눈이 오는 바람에 길이 미끄러웠다.
= It snowed and (as a result) the streets were slippery.
The result or consequence in the following clause should be negative
Just like with -느라고, the following clause must be negative, adverse or in any way undesirable. Otherwise it will sound unnatural.
오랜만에 데이트를 하는 바람에 기분이 좋아졌다. (X)
Note however that there are exceptions to this rule. When positive results or consequences follow this, it is perceived as something unintentional and something that simply happened.
Tense marker at the end
Tense markers can not be attached to the verb stem that is used with -는 바람에. Instead they are added to the end of the sentence or the second clause. This makes this grammar structure even easier to use since it truly only has one shape.
어제 늦게 잤는 바람에 아침에 늦게 일어나다 (X)
어제 늦게 잤는 바람에 아침에 늦게 일어났다 (X)
어제 늦게 자는 바람에 아침에 늦게 일어났다. (O)
= I slept late yesterday so I woke up late in the morning.
Only past tense can be used
Using this pattern, you can only describe events that occured in the past. Because of this, you can not use propositive or imperative forms with this pattern either.
무릎을 다치는 바람에 병원에 갈거에요. (X)
무릎을 다치는 바람에 병원에 가세요. (X)
무릎을 다치는 바람에 병원에 가게 됐어요. (O)
= I hurt my knee so (because of that) I ended up going to the hospital
Difference between -느라고 and -는 바람에
As you may be aware of by now, there are so many ways to describe cause and reason in Korean that it’s easy to get confused and mix them up. So let’s look at how this grammar compare to a similar one.
-는 바람에
- Emphasizes that the cause or reason presented in the first clause was unintentional, external or beyond one’s control.
- The two clauses can have different subjects
- The two clauses can occur asynchronously or separately.
-느라고
- The subject’s own actions caused whatever is described in the second clause (while the action was indeed his or her own, the result or consequence of that action is unintended or unwanted).
- Same subject in both clauses.
- First clause and second clause take place simultaneously.
With this in mind, let’s take a look at a sentence to highlight the main difference.
야구를 보는 바람에 숙제를 못했어요. (X)
This sentence is wrong because watching baseball was not an unexpected occurence or something I wouldn’t have hoped for. So since the action is our own, we have to use -느라고.
야구를 보느라고 숙제를 못했어요. (O)
= I couldn’t do my homework because I watched baseball.
Now if we wanted to use the grammar we’ve been learning in this lesson, we would have to change the cause to something else. Let’s say our computer broke.
컴퓨터가 고장이 나는 바람에 숙제를 못했어요. (O)
= My computer broker so I couldn’t do my homework.
Use with nouns and adjectives?
While outside of the scope of this lesson, you can actually use “바람” with nouns (remove 는) and adjectives (replace 는 with ㄴ) as well to express an influence or force that come happens with that noun or adjective. It is similar in meaning to what we’ve already learned above but the result doesn’t necessarily have to be negative and most of the rules that we’ve learned don’t really apply here. That’s why it’s important to separate the two.
If you need to use adjectives with the grammar we’ve learned in this lesson, you can change them into their verb form using DVST +어/아지다. (춥다 -> 추워지다)
Please like or share if you found this lesson helpful! And if you have any questions or something else you want to say, make sure to let us know by leaving a comment below and we will do our best to help you out!
By: Kimchi Cloud
Hi 🙂
First of all, thank you so much for the grammar explanation. It was very useful.
I have a question regarding the use of this structure with adjectives. For example, if I used 춥다 -> 추워지는 바람에, would it be ok?
Hi and thank you for the question! Yes that’s perfectly fine to do. ^^