How to say "to" as a linking word between verbs in Korean?

Question

I've been learning both English and Korean, and as I know, we can use "to" to link two verbs in English. Ex: > Alex is lost. We must go to find her. > I would like to invite Kim professor to teach English In this sentence, "to" is the linking word between "go" and "find", "invite" and "teach", so it's easy for me to understand or write English sentences. But it's hard for me to understand and write Korean sentences, because I cannot find any linking word like "to" in Korean. I know some words that have a related purpose in Korean, like "기 위해서" or "도록", but I think they only can be used in some situations, not every situation like "to" in English. > Alex를 찾기 위해 가야 해요 or > 나는 김 교수님가 영어 수업을 가르쳐 주시도록 초대하고 싶습니다" seem strange. Can you help me find such a linking word (link two verbs) in Korean?

Answer 1

"Alex is lost. We must go to find her."

For this sentence, I would use "Alex가 없어졌어요. Alex 찾으러 가야해요. "

.There are couple of ways to link two verbs in Korean. In Korean, for the meaning of "to do something", you can use -기 위해, -도록" like you said. But when you use those, it doesn't sound natural, is it? Because It is more like written style. But you can use simple connecting suffix "-러" which has meaning of "to do something" like below.

"Alex 찾으러 가야 해요." We must go to find Alex.

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"I would like to invite professor Kim to teach English"

For this sentence, I would use "김 교수님께서 영어를 가르쳐주시도록 초대하고 싶습니다."

When I see your sentence ending "싶습니다", I can tell that it is very polite sentence style. That's why I used honorific subject mark "-께서" and honorific suffix "-시" for verb (가르치다). And in this case, "-도록" is good and proper because it is full phrase has meaning of "for professor Kim to teach English." Professor Kim is the one who is going to teach, right? So you need make a phrase of "김 교수님께서 영어를 가르쳐주시도록".

Then, when can you use "-러"? When a person is the one to do both two actions eventually, you can use "-러" to link two verbs. Like "Alex 찾으러 가야해요." You are the one to do two actions of "go" and "find".

I hope this helps!!

Thanks,

Mina Yeon

Answer 2

Actually, to find her is not "linking" the two verbs, it is a prepositional phrase modifying go. Why do we go? To find her. Let's add another prepositional phrase to clarify. "Alex is missing. Let's go to her house to find her. Go is the verb. To her house modifies go by telling us where we are going. To find her tells us why.

Korean has many ways of expressing this, but one translation would be "Alex씨가 길을 잊어기대무내 찾으러 가자" or "찾기로 가자."