Korean grammar · Level 4 · 4급
-(으)ㄹ 텐데
Surely… / It would be…
-(으)ㄹ 텐데 adds the speaker's strong guess and leaves something unsaid — a worry, a wish, or a gentle reason for advice. In the middle of a sentence it sets up what follows: 비가 올 텐데 (“it's going to rain, surely, so…”). After -다면 or -더라면 it gives the imagined result: “it would be…”.
| When | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|
| ends in a vowel | -ㄹ 텐데 | 오다 → 올 텐데 · 배고프다 → 배고플 텐데 |
| ends in a consonant | -을 텐데 | 먹다 → 먹을 텐데 · 좋다 → 좋을 텐데 |
| noun | 일 텐데 | 학생일 텐데 |
Examples
비가 올 텐데 우산을 가져가세요.
It's going to rain — take an umbrella.
돈이 많다면 좋을 텐데요.
It would be nice to have a lot of money.
호야 씨가 배고플 텐데 호떡을 사 갈까요?
Hoya must be hungry. Shall we take him some hotteok?
Practise it in context · Level 4, Unit 1
If I won the lottery
A dialogue with audio, practice that checks itself, Hoya’s mistakes, a reading and a writing task.
Open the unit →