Recollected Past Relative Clauses: -던 and -았/었던 | Korean Grammar

The plain past attributive -(으)ㄴ tells you an action was completed — 먹은 사과, "the apple I ate." But Korean has two more attributives that add something -(으)ㄴ cannot: a sense that the speaker is recalling the past from personal experience, and that the action was ongoing, habitual, or interrupted rather than cleanly finished. These are -던 and -았/었던. English collapses all of this into one relative clause ("the apple I ate," "the school I attended"), so this is a distinction you have to build from scratch — and it's a favorite of the TOPIK 3 level and of natural, nostalgic speech.

-던: ongoing, habitual, or interrupted — and remembered

-던 attaches to any stem and paints the past action as not sealed off. It carries one or more of three flavors, always filtered through the speaker's memory:

Habitual / repeated: something you used to do. 자주 가던 식당 = "the restaurant I used to go to a lot."
Ongoing / interrupted: something that was in progress and then broke off. 마시던 커피 = "the coffee I was (in the middle of) drinking."
Recollected: the speaker witnessed or personally experienced it, and is calling it back to mind.

내가 다니던 학교가 이제 없어졌어요.

naega danideon hakgyoga ije eopseojeosseoyo

The school I used to attend is gone now.

여기가 예전에 살던 동네예요.

yeogiga yejeone saldeon dongneyeyo

This is the neighborhood I used to live in.

마시던 커피를 그대로 두고 나왔어요.

masideon keopireul geudaero dugo nawasseoyo

I left the coffee I'd been drinking as it was and came out.

That last one is the pure interrupted reading: the coffee was half-drunk, set down, abandoned. Say 마신 커피 instead and the coffee is simply "the coffee I drank" — finished, gone. The -던 form is what tells the listener the cup was left mid-sip.

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The cleanest one-word gloss for -던 is often "used to" (habitual) or "was ...-ing" (interrupted): 자주 듣던 노래 = "a song I used to listen to often," 읽던 책 = "the book I was reading." If neither "used to" nor "was ...-ing" fits, you probably want plain -(으)ㄴ instead.

-았/었던: completed, and now over

-았/었던 stacks the past marker -았/었- before -던. This gives a past that is clearly completed but explicitly discontinued — the situation was true back then and is contrasted, spoken or implied, with a different present. It's the "back in those days, no longer now" attributive.

어릴 때 제일 좋아했던 만화예요.

eoril ttae jeil joahaetdeon manhwayeyo

It's the cartoon I liked best when I was little. (I don't especially now)

옛날에 유명했던 가수를 우연히 만났어요.

yennare yumyeonghaetdeon gasureul uyeonhi mannasseoyo

I ran into a singer who was famous back in the day.

한때 세계 최고였던 그 팀이 이제 아무도 기억하지 않아요.

hantae segye choegoyeotdeon geu timi ije amudo gieokaji anayo

That team, once the best in the world — nobody even remembers it now.

The completed-and-discontinued sense is why -았/었던 pairs so naturally with 옛날에 ("in the old days"), 한때 ("at one time"), 어릴 때 ("as a child") — words that frame a closed-off era. With a stative predicate like 유명하다 or 예쁘다, -았/었던 is the normal way to say "was X (but isn't now)": 예뻤던 그 사람 = "that person, who used to be pretty."

The whole contrast, on one verb

The payoff is seeing 먹다 run through all four attributives, because English gives you almost nothing to distinguish them:

Form	Korean	What it says about the apple
Present -는	먹는 사과	the apple (someone) eats / is eating
Past -(으)ㄴ	먹은 사과	the apple I ate (simply completed)
Retrospective -던	먹던 사과	the apple I was in the middle of eating
Completed-retrospective -았던	먹었던 사과	the apple I ate back then (that one, no longer around)

먹던 사과는 버리고 새 걸로 먹었어요.

meokdeon sagwaneun beorigo sae geollo meogeosseoyo

I threw out the apple I'd been eating and had a fresh one.

English uses "the apple I was eating" for 먹던 and "the apple I ate" for both 먹은 and 먹었던, blurring three Korean forms into two. The Korean distinction is real and speakers feel it: -던 keeps the scene open (you can still picture the half-eaten apple), while -(으)ㄴ and -았던 close it.

ㄹ-stems keep their ㄹ before -던

An easy slip: because ㄹ drops before the present -는 (사는) and past -ㄴ (산), learners over-apply the drop to -던. But -던 begins with ㄷ, and ㄹ does not drop before ㄷ. So a ㄹ-stem keeps its ㄹ: 살다 → 살던, 팔다 → 팔던, 만들다 → 만들던, 놀다 → 놀던.

어렸을 때 자주 놀던 놀이터가 아직 그대로 있어요.

eoryeosseul ttae jaju noldeon noriteoga ajik geudaero isseoyo

The playground I used to play at as a kid is still there just as it was.

Compare 사는 곳 ("the place I live," present, ㄹ dropped) with 살던 곳 ("the place I used to live," retrospective, ㄹ kept). The ending's first sound decides the fate of the ㄹ.

Boundary: this page is the attributive -던, not the finite -더-

-던 is built on the retrospective marker -더-, and that same -더- also appears in sentence-final moods like -더라 ("I saw that...") and -던데. Those are a Tense/Aspect matter — the mood you use to report something you personally witnessed. This page covers only the job of -더- (as -던) modifying a noun. For the finite endings and the deeper semantics of the retrospective, see the -더- core; for choosing between -던 and -(으)ㄴ specifically, see -던 vs -(으)ㄴ.

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-던 and -았/었던 are register-neutral and thoroughly everyday — 살던 집, 다니던 회사, 좋아했던 노래 are ordinary conversation, not literary flourishes. What makes them feel "nostalgic" isn't the register; it's the built-in meaning of recalling a past that's over.

Common Mistakes

Mistake 1 — Using plain -(으)ㄴ for an interrupted action. If it was in progress and broke off, you need -던, not -(으)ㄴ.

❌ 마신 커피를 그대로 두고 나왔어요.

Wrong for 'the coffee I was drinking' — 마신 커피 means 'the coffee I drank (finished)'; the half-drunk one is 마시던 커피.

✅ 마시던 커피를 그대로 두고 나왔어요.

masideon keopireul geudaero dugo nawasseoyo

I left the coffee I'd been drinking and came out.

Mistake 2 — Over-using -았/었던 where plain -(으)ㄴ is enough. For a neutral, recent completion, -(으)ㄴ is correct; -았던 adds an unwanted "long ago, no longer" flavor.

❌ 아까 먹었던 밥이 좀 짰어요.

Odd — for 'the rice I ate a moment ago' use 먹은 밥; 먹었던 implies a remote, discontinued past.

✅ 아까 먹은 밥이 좀 짰어요.

akka meogeun babi jom jjasseoyo

The rice I ate a little while ago was a bit salty.

Mistake 3 — Dropping the ㄹ before -던. ㄹ survives before -던 (it starts with ㄷ).

❌ 예전에 사던 집이 그리워요.

Wrong — 살다 keeps its ㄹ before -던 → 살던, not 사던 (which would be from 사다, 'buy').

✅ 예전에 살던 집이 그리워요.

yejeone saldeon jibi geuriwoyo

I miss the house I used to live in.

Mistake 4 — Using -던 for a one-time completed event. -던 implies repetition or an ongoing/interrupted scene, so it clashes with a single finished action.

❌ 작년에 가던 제주도가 정말 좋았어요.

Wrong for a single trip — 가던 implies you went there repeatedly; a one-off is 간 / 갔던 제주도.

✅ 작년에 갔던 제주도가 정말 좋았어요.

jangnyeone gatdeon jejudoga jeongmal joasseoyo

Jeju Island, where I went last year, was really nice.

Key Takeaways

-던 = a past action recalled as habitual, ongoing, or interrupted: 다니던 학교, 마시던 커피, 자주 듣던 노래. Gloss it "used to" or "was ...-ing."
-았/었던 = a past that is completed and now discontinued, often "back then, no longer": 좋아했던 노래, 유명했던 가수, 예뻤던 그 사람.
On one verb: 먹는 (eats) / 먹은 (ate, done) / 먹던 (was eating) / 먹었던 (ate back then) — a four-way contrast English mostly collapses.
ㄹ-stems keep their ㄹ before -던 (살던, 놀던), because -던 begins with ㄷ.
This page is the attributive use only; the finite retrospective -더라 / -던데 lives with tense/aspect.

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