는지 meaning — how Korean puts a question inside a sentence (26 real examples)

English can drop a question into the middle of a sentence without changing much: "I know what you did." The question word stays, the word order shifts slightly, and everyone copes.

Korean uses a dedicated ending for this, and until you know it, those sentences arrive as noise.

뭘 했는지 기억이 안 나 is "I do not remember what we did." The 는지 is doing the work that English does with word order — it wraps a question and hands it to the main verb as an object.

The reason it is worth a page is that the wrapped question is almost never the point of the sentence. The point is the verb after it: 알다, 모르다, 보다, 궁금하다. If you only catch the question and miss the frame, you hear someone asking you something when they were telling you they had no idea.

Every example below came from clips we transcribed for our shadowing library.

는지 · ㄴ지 · 을지 — one ending, three tenses

The shape changes with time, and the changes are the ordinary Korean ones rather than anything special to this ending.

하는지 — present. What someone does, or is doing.

했는지 — past. What someone did. This is the form you will meet most, because most of these sentences are about something that already happened.

할지 — future or unrealised. What someone will do, or might.

Adjectives take ㄴ지 instead: 좋은지, 어떤지.

All of these are the same ending. The entries below mix them, because a learner listening to speech gets them mixed too, and sorting them by tense would teach a filing system rather than an ear.

The verbs it feeds

This ending almost never ends a sentence. It hands its clause to a verb, and there is a short list of verbs that take it.

알다 and 모르다 — knowing and not knowing. Overwhelmingly the most common, and 모르다 is more common than 알다, because people say what they do not know far more often than what they do.

보다 — watching to find out. 배신하는지 보는 거잖아 is "we are watching to see whether he betrays us".

궁금하다 — being curious. 기억나다 — remembering.

When you hear 는지, the useful reflex is to wait for the verb rather than to parse what came before it. The verb is what tells you whether this is knowledge, doubt, observation, or curiosity — and that is the actual content of the sentence.

A question inside a statement — casual

The main use. A question word, a clause, the ending, then the verb that consumes it.

Read these looking for the verb at the end first. It is the thing that decides what the sentence is about, and it is the part learners skip because it arrives last.

Notice how many are negative — not knowing, not remembering. That is the honest distribution, not a selection.

• 어떤 스캣을 주로 하는지 좀 (haneunji) — Can you show us the kind.
• 나를 배신하는지 보는 거잖아 (baesinhaneunji) — he's watching to see if I'll betray him.
• 뭘 했는지 기억이 안 나는데 (haenneunji) — I don't know what we did... Literally: 했는지 is said 핸는지.
• 본인도 어떻게 했었는지 몰라 (haesseonneunji) — He forgot what he did. Literally: 했었는지 is said 해썬는지.
• 어느 정도의 시간이 걸리는지 (geollineunji) — how long it takes.
• 오늘 저와의 시간이 어땠는지 (eottaenneunji) — Lastly, how about we hear. Literally: 어땠는지 is said 어땐는지.
• 네가 지금 뭘 놓치고 있는지 (inneunji) — Think about what you're missing. Literally: 있는지 is said 인는지.
• '던지면 어떻게 되는지 봐봐' (doeneunji) — 'See what will happen if you throw it'.
• 뭐 그런 적이 있으셨는지. (isseusyeonneunji) — so I wondered if you've ever felt that way. Literally: 있으셨는지 is said 이쓰션는지.
• 어떠셨는지 소감을 한마디씩 (eotteosyeonneunji) — Please share your thoughts on this with us. Literally: 어떠셨는지 is said 어떠션는지.
• 어떤 상품들이 있는지 궁금해요 (inneunji) — so we wanted to see what they have. Literally: 있는지 is said 인는지.
• 근육 있는지 체크해 봤어~ (inneunji) — I was checking if you have muscles. Literally: 있는지 is said 인는지.
• 누가 더 가요를 더 잘 아는지 (aneunji) — It's about who knows K-pop better.

A question inside a question — casual

Here the whole sentence is also a question, so there are two layers: the embedded one and the real one.

뭐라고 쓰셨는지 봐도 돼요? is asking permission, not asking what was written. The wrapped question is scenery.

These are the entries most likely to trip you in conversation, because the question word near the front pulls your attention to the wrong layer.

• 뭐라고 쓰셨는지 봐도 돼요? (sseusyeonneunji) — Can I see what you wrote? Literally: 쓰셨는지 is said 쓰션는지.
• 옛날에 얼마나 웃겼는지 알아? (utgyeonneunji) — This is another funny story. Literally: 웃겼는지 is said 욷껸는지.
• 누구 살렸는지 밝혀줄 수 있어? (sallyeonneunji) — Can you reveal who you saved? Literally: 살렸는지 is said 살련는지.
• 누가 제일 잘 만드는지? (mandeuneunji) — Who makes it best?
• 평소 부모님 말씀을 잘 듣는지? (deunneunji) — Do you listen to your parents well? Literally: 듣는지 is said 든는지.
• 어떻게 하면 설레는지? (seolleneunji) — What sort of thrill?
• 하오 씨는 어떠셨는지? (eotteosyeonneunji) — What about you, Hao? Literally: 어떠셨는지 is said 어떠션는지.
• 왜 내추럴한 걸 좀 추구하시는지? (chuguhasineunji) — Do you like natural things?
• 뭐 왔는지 한 번 개봉박두 해볼까요? (wanneunji) — Shall we unbox them at once? Literally: 왔는지 is said 완는지.
• 제가 왜 그 카드를 골랐는지 알아요? (gollanneunji) — You know why I picked that card? Literally: 골랐는지 is said 골란는지.
• 식었는지 볼까요? (sigeonneunji) — Let's see if it's cool enough. Literally: 식었는지 is said 시건는지.
• 팬분들이 형을 뭐라고 부르는지 알아요? (bureuneunji) — Do you know what the fans call you?
• 본인의 외모를 몇 점이라 생각하시는지? (saenggakasineunji) — Rate yourself out of 10. Literally: 생각하시는지 is said 생가카시는지.

Why this one hides in subtitles

English embeds questions so smoothly that a translator has nothing to mark.

어떻게 했는지 몰라 becomes "I have no idea how she did it." Every piece of the Korean is represented, and yet the ending that made the embedding possible has no counterpart on screen. There was nothing to translate it into.

Worse for learners, translators often flip the sentence to lead with the main verb, because English prefers that order. The Korean puts the wrapped question first and the verb last; the subtitle puts the verb first. So the shape you read is the mirror image of the shape you heard.

That mismatch is the specific reason this construction can stay opaque long after you technically know it. You are not failing to recognise the ending — you are failing to map two sentences that are built back to front from each other.

Reading the entries back to front

Korean and English build these sentences in opposite orders, and that is the whole difficulty.

English: I do not remember / what we did.

Korean: what we did / I do not remember.

The information is identical. The order in which it arrives is reversed, and your ear is running in real time, so by the time the Korean verb lands you have been holding an unresolved question for a second or two.

Beginners deal with this by translating as they go, which fails immediately — you cannot translate the first half until you have heard the second.

The habit that works is the opposite: hold the clause without interpreting it, wait for the verb, then let the whole thing resolve at once. This feels wrong and slow at first. It is how the sentence is designed to be processed, and every Korean listener does it automatically.

This one construction is good practice for that skill in general, because the payoff is always at the end and there is no way to shortcut it.

는지 next to the question endings

It helps to separate this from the endings that make a sentence into an actual question.

나요 and 는데? and 구나? all turn the whole sentence into something the listener is expected to answer. 는지 does the opposite — it takes a question and makes it a piece of a statement, so nobody is expected to answer anything.

The tell is what comes after. If 는지 is the last thing in the sentence, something has been left out on purpose — usually 모르겠어, trailing off. If a verb follows, the sentence is a statement and the question inside it is inert.

One further wrinkle worth knowing: 는지 also appears in set phrases like 얼마나 …는지 몰라, which is an exclamation rather than an admission of ignorance. It is idiom rather than grammar, and it is common enough that hearing it as literal ignorance will confuse you once or twice.

How to practise this one

Read the entries and, for each, find the main verb before you try to understand the clause. Say the verb out loud first. That is the reverse of how the sentence arrives, and it is the habit that makes these parse in real time.

Then take five and rebuild them in English, keeping Korean order: "what we did — I do not remember." It sounds broken, and that is useful. The brokenness is exactly the gap your ear has to close.

For production, 뭐 …는지 알아요? ("do you know what…") is one frame that will carry you a long way, because it works with almost any question word slotted in front.

FAQ

What does 는지 mean? It wraps a question so it can sit inside a larger sentence — the job English does with word order in "I know what you did". On its own it has no translation.

What is the difference between 는지 and ㄴ지? Tense and word class. 하는지 is present, 했는지 past, 할지 future; adjectives take ㄴ지 as in 좋은지. It is the same ending throughout.

Is 는지 a question ending? No — it is the opposite. It takes a question and makes it part of a statement, so nobody is expected to answer it. Endings like 나요 make the whole sentence a real question.

Why do I never see it in subtitles? Because English embeds questions without marking them, so there is nothing to translate it into. Translators also tend to flip the clause order, which makes the English the mirror image of the Korean.

Where did these examples come from? From Korean idol and variety clips we transcribed for our shadowing library.