saendeureun pyeonhajiman orae georeumyeon dariga jom apayo.

Sandals are comfortable, but if I walk for a long time, my legs hurt a bit.

Breakdown of saendeureun pyeonhajiman orae georeumyeon dariga jom apayo.

• ~가: subject particle
• ~은: topic particle
• 걷다: to walk
• ~으면: if

Questions & Answers about saendeureun pyeonhajiman orae georeumyeon dariga jom apayo.

Why is 샌들 followed by 은 in 샌들은?

은 is the topic particle. In 샌들은, it marks sandals as the topic: as for sandals or sandals, ...

It also gives a slight contrastive feeling here, which fits the rest of the sentence well:

샌들은 편하지만 ...
As for sandals, they’re comfortable, but ...

That contrast matches the but idea in 편하지만.

Because 샌들 ends in a consonant sound (-l), you use 은, not 는.

What does 편하지만 mean exactly, and how is it built?

편하지만 comes from:

• 편하다 = to be comfortable / convenient
• -지만 = but / although

So:

• 편하다
• 편하지
• 편하지만

This means is comfortable, but ...

In this sentence, 하지만 is attached directly to the adjective stem, so it works like comfortable, but ...

A very similar sentence could also be written with a pause:

샌들은 편해요. 하지만 오래 걸으면 ...

That is more like: Sandals are comfortable. But if you walk a long time...

The original sentence is smoother and more natural as one sentence.

Why is 오래 used instead of something like 길게?