jeongwone simeossdeon kkotdeuri beolsseo pieosseo.

subject particle

Breakdown of jeongwone simeossdeon kkotdeuri beolsseo pieosseo.

• ~들: plural marker
• 꽃: flower
• 피다: to bloom

Questions & Answers about jeongwone simeossdeon kkotdeuri beolsseo pieosseo.

Why does the verb 심다 become 심었던 in this sentence? What does -었던 add compared to just 심은?

The form 심었던 comes from 심다 + -었(더)던. Here’s what it does:

1. -었던 marks a past action that the speaker has in mind and links it to the current situation.
2. It turns the verb into a modifier for 꽃들 (“the flowers that I had planted”).
3. Compared to 심은, 심었던 often carries a nuance of recalling or emphasizing that this was done before and now its result matters. You could say both 정원에 심은 꽃들 and 정원에 심었던 꽃들, but the latter sounds slightly more reflective (“the ones I specifically planted back then”).

Why is the particle 에 used after 정원? Wouldn’t 에서 (“from/in”) be more natural for “in the garden”?

In Korean, 정원에 심다 is the standard collocation for “to plant in a garden.” Here’s why:

• 에 can mark the target location or destination of an action (“put/plant something at X”).
• 에서 emphasizes the location where an action is taking place (“I’m doing something at X”).
  Since planting focuses on placing the flower into the garden’s soil (the target), 에 is preferred. Saying 정원에서 심었다 is grammatical, but it shifts the nuance to “the garden is where I did the planting,” rather than “inside the garden.”

What’s the role of the plural marker 들 in 꽃들이? Could I just say 꽃이?