Breakdown of oneul jeonyeoge mwo meogeulji ajik mos jeonghaesseoyo.
뭐mwo
what
먹다meokda
to eat
오늘oneul
today
~에~e
time particle
Questions & Answers about oneul jeonyeoge mwo meogeulji ajik mos jeonghaesseoyo.
Why is 에 used in 오늘 저녁에?
Here, 에 marks the time when something happens. So 오늘 저녁에 means this evening / tonight in the sense of at dinner time or for this evening.
A very natural way to think about it is:
- 오늘 = today
- 저녁 = evening / dinner
- 오늘 저녁에 = this evening / tonight / for dinner tonight
In Korean, time expressions sometimes appear with or without 에, depending on the word and the situation. With 오늘, 내일, 어제, you often do not use 에 by themselves. But when a more specific time noun like 저녁 is part of the phrase, 에 is common and natural.
What does 뭐 mean here, and is it different from 무엇?
뭐 is the casual spoken form of 무엇, both meaning what.
So:
- 무엇 = what (more formal, dictionary-like, careful)
- 뭐 = what (very common in speech)
In this sentence, 뭐 먹을지 means what to eat.
You will hear 뭐 much more often in everyday Korean than 무엇.
Why is it 먹을지 and not just 먹어요 or 먹는지?