-를 위하다 / -기 위하다

-를 위한, -를 위해서, -기 위한, -기 위해서

위하다 means ‘for’ or ‘in order to’. It can take an object or a noun clause. When it takes an object, it is ‘-을/를 위하다’ and when it takes an noun clause, it is ‘-기(를) 위하다’.

When 위하다 modifies a noun, we use 위한 or 위하는. For example, -를 위한, -기(를) 위한. When 위하다 modifies a verb, we use as 위하여 or 위해(서).

noun위한 + noun
noun 위해서 + verb
verb(를) 위한 + noun
verb(를) 위해서 + verb = verb(으)려고 + verb (click here to learn 으려고)

For example,
너를 위한 기도 pray for you
너를 위해서 나는 내 삶을 버렸어. I gave up my life for you.
집을 사기 위해서 열심히 돈을 벌었어요. I worked hard to buy a house.
컴퓨터 엔지니어가 되기 위해 컴퓨터 공학을 공부하려고 합니다. I am going to study computer science to become an computer engineer.

위해서라면

You probably heard 위해서라면 in K-songs a lot.
-(이)라면 means ‘if’, thus 위해서라면 means ‘if it is for (someone)’. For example,

널 위해서라면 난 슬퍼도 강한 척할 수가 있었어. For you(If it is for you), I could pretend to be strong even though I was sad. (Fake Love by BTS)
나라를 지키기 위해서라면 제 목숨까지 바치겠습니다. If it is for protecting our country, I can devote my life.



One thought on “-를 위하다 / -기 위하다

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.