이런/그런/저런: 'this kind of / such'

English has a word for "such" and a phrase for "this kind of," and neither of them cares where the thing is. Korean's equivalents do. 이런 / 그런 / 저런 — "this kind of / that kind of / such" — are built on the same three pointing stems 이/그/저 you already know, so they inherit the whole speaker–listener–distance logic. This is a small but genuinely illuminating fact: when a Korean says 그런 사람 ("that kind of person"), the 그 is doing the same anchoring work it does in 그것 or 거기. Once you feel that, choosing the right one of the three stops being guesswork.

This page also introduces their close cousins, the manner adverbs 이렇게/그렇게/저렇게 ("like this / like that / in that way"), which learners constantly confuse with the determiners. Keeping the two apart is most of the battle.

The determiners: 이런 / 그런 / 저런

These come from the descriptive verbs 이러하다 / 그러하다 / 저러하다 ("to be like this / like that"), worn down to the modifier forms 이런 / 그런 / 저런. They sit directly in front of a noun and mean "this/that kind of ~":

• 이런 — this kind of (a type like the one right here / that I'm presenting)
• 그런 — that kind of / such (the type we're discussing, or one the listener knows)
• 저런 — that kind of, over yonder (a type visibly out there, away from us both)

Why 그런 is the workhorse

Here's the reframing that matters. In English, "such" and "that kind of" are neutral — they don't point anywhere. In Korean the default is emphatically 그런, because most of the time "that kind of thing" means "the kind we've been talking about / the kind you have in mind." 그, remember, is Korean's stem for shared or already-introduced information (see Referential 그: 'the' for known information). So 그런 quietly reaches back into the conversation:

If you're ever unsure which of the three to use, and you're referring to something already in the air, reach for 그런. It's right far more often than 이런 or 저런.

저런 as a standalone gasp

Cut loose from any noun, 저런! is an interjection — a sympathetic "oh no!" / "oh dear!" You say it when you hear bad news, the same way 저기 became "excuse me." It's the "look at that (unfortunate) situation over there" reflex, frozen into an exclamation.

The manner adverbs: 이렇게 / 그렇게 / 저렇게

Now the partners. From the same verb family (이렇다/그렇다/저렇다) come the adverbs 이렇게 / 그렇게 / 저렇게 — "like this / like that / in that way." They modify a verb, not a noun, telling you how something is done. Note the pronunciation: the ㅎ and the ㄱ fuse into an aspirated sound, so 이렇게 is said [이러케] (ireoke), not [이럳게].

그렇게 in particular also means "so / to that extent" (그렇게 화가 났어요 = "so angry"), which makes it one of the most-used adverbs in the language. And because 그렇게 modifies verbs, it slides naturally into "like that, the way you're describing."

The 그렇다 family you'll meet everywhere

The predicate 그렇다 ("to be so / to be that way") throws off a cluster of extremely high-frequency words. You don't need to master them here, but recognize their shared DNA — they're all 그 + "be like":

이런저런: "various / this and that"

Korean loves to pair 이 and 저 into a single word meaning "assorted, all sorts of." 이런저런 ("this-kind and that-kind") is the fixed compound for "various / miscellaneous," and it's genuinely idiomatic — you'll hear it constantly when someone waves vaguely at a bundle of unspecified things. The 그런 stem is skipped here precisely because the phrase is not pointing at anything known; it's gesturing at an open, unsorted collection, and only the 이/저 poles (near and far, "everything from here to there") capture that spread.

The same template gives you 이러쿵저러쿵 ("going on about this and that," often with a nagging or gossipy flavor) and, in the adverb world, 이렇게 저렇게 ("one way or another"). The pattern is worth internalizing: pairing the near and far poles = "the whole range, unsorted."

Common Mistakes

1. Using 저런 for something just discussed. This is the same 저-vs-그 trap that haunts the whole demonstrative system. If your friend describes an infuriating coworker and you react, the coworker is "in play" between you — that's 그런. 저런 as a determiner would mean you're pointing at a person visibly off in the distance.

2. Confusing the determiner 이런 with the adverb 이렇게. 이런 goes before a noun ("this kind of X"); 이렇게 goes before a verb ("in this way"). Swapping them is one of the most common intermediate errors.

3. Spelling the adverb as it sounds. Because 이렇게 is pronounced [이러케], learners write ×이러케 or ×그러케. The spelling keeps the ㅎ of the 이렇다 stem: 이렇게 / 그렇게 / 저렇게. The aspiration is a sound rule, not a spelling.

4. Forcing English "such a" onto 저런. English "such a beautiful day!" tempts a distal word, but 저런 means "yonder kind." For something present and in front of you, Korean uses 이런 ("이런 날씨 정말 좋네요" — "weather like this is really nice"), or often no determiner at all.

Key Takeaways

• 이런/그런/저런 are "this/that kind of ~," built on 이/그/저 — so they carry the same three-way anchoring: 이런 = the type here, 그런 = the type we're discussing (the default), 저런 = the type yonder.
• 이렇게/그렇게/저렇게 are the matching manner adverbs ("like this/that"), pronounced with an aspirated [-케]; they modify verbs, not nouns.
• Determiner + noun (이런 사람) vs. adverb + verb (이렇게 하다) — keep the two jobs separate.
• Standalone 저런! = "oh no!"; and the 그렇다 family (그래요, 그러면, 그러니까) runs through everyday Korean.