Using 아니라 in a sentence to create negating nouns and caluses

 In Korean, to create a denial sentence, we can use phrases like 아니라 and ~는 게 아니라. First, 아니라 is used to deny a statement or information. For example, "그것은 사실이 아니라고 생각해요" (I don't think that's true). 

Furthermore, ~는 게 아니라 emphasizes the denial of one fact or situation and states the truth of another. For example, "그 일 은 어제 일어난 게 아니라 오늘 일어난 거예요" (That incident did not happen yesterday, but today). 

By using this grammar, Korean speakers can clearly express denial or contrasting circumstances in information. 

Look at the example on the board, here we will change the 다 in 아니다 with 라 so that it becomes 아니라. The clause before 아니라 is a negative sentence and the clause after 아니라 usually explains the previous sentence.

Note, just like when you use 아니다, the particle 이/가 needs to be attached to the word before 아니라. Remember, you have to be careful with this grammatical form which looks very similar to 아/어서 (because) added to 이다 (which sometimes turns into (이) 라(서)). Although they look the same, make sure you can distinguish the difference between the meanings of "because".

If you haven't learned this yet, please click here to learn more. 

In practice we can use other grammars besides 것이, one of which is by changing 것이 to 게 . When using 아니라 to remove the verb/adjective in the previous sentence, for example:

A side note that I should say on this lesson is about the use of "그 게 아니라" which is also often used for sentence prefixes that have the meaning of "does not mean..." For example:

그게 아니라 그냥 볶음밥이 먹고 싶어요 = Not that, I just want to eat fried rice

그게 아니라 바쁘신 줄 알았어요 = No, I think you're busy.

However, in this situation, there is another phrase that can be used which is "다름이 아니라", this word is often used in some formal situations. For example, when you are talking to coworkers/clients/superiors (etc...), people usually start the conversation with small talk about other topics (that are not related to work). 

If you want to stop the personal chatter and start talking about some facts/business/whatever, just say the phrase "다름이 아니라" which if translated in English means "alright, let's get on with business here."   

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