었었

eoteot

Grammarheard in 1,877 videos · 7,731 times

Also spelled eodeot, otot

did back then — and it's over now

Doubles the past-tense marker to push an event further back and cut it off from the present: 갔었어요 'I went, back then' versus plain 갔어요 'I went'. The extra layer signals that the situation no longer holds — 외식만 했었는데 'we used to only eat out (but not anymore)', 믿었었어 'I believed in you once'. After a stem with a bright vowel it appears as 았었 (갔었어요). It is buried inside the verb, never a separate word.

Register: neutral, very common in speech

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그래서 어렸을 때도 야채 먹을 때 소스 잔뜩 뿌려서 먹 어요.