#보다 보이다 차이

anon asked: I was studying and came across the sentence 별이 보여요. I looked on Papago and I’m confused. anything helps at this point. Thanks!

Hey, no worries! I got you!

The sentence 별이 보여요 actually means “the stars are seen”. 보이다 is a passive verb (수동태), whereas, 보다 is an active verb (능동태). What this means is that the subject either is doing the action or receives action from the verb.

보다 - to see
보이다 - to be seen

Passive and active verbs are super common in English (if used sparingly). For example, you can say, I threw the ball (I did the action to the ball) or, the ball was thrown by me. This shows that the action is done (passive) by the objective me, to the subjective ball.

Here are some more examples in Korean:

• 별을 봐요 - I see the stars
• 별이 보여요 - The stars are seen
• 사자가 토끼를 봤어요 - The lion sees the rabbit
• 토끼가 사자에게 보였어요 - The rabbit is seen by the lion
• 많은 사람들은 영화 기생충을 봤어요 - Many people watched the movie Parasite
• 영화 기생충은 많은 사람들에게 보여졌어요 - The movie Parasite was seen by many people

Hope this answers your question! If there’s any more confusion, please don’t hesitate to pm or send another ask! Happy Learning :)

~ SK101