I wonder what does the “...를 가지고 있기도 하고요” do? Why couldn’t just simply use “있어요?”

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I wonder what does the “…를 가지고 있기도 하고요” do? Why couldn’t just simply use “있어요?”

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I know it seems weird to use the present progressive tense with possession because you can’t really say “I am having” in English. If you think about it logically, it also doesn’t make sense that the action isn’t continuing at all in English. You don’t just stop having something in most situations. In this case with Korean, remember that it’s a full verb construction of 가지다 (갖다) + ~고 있다. to construct the present progressive + 기도 하다 (also/too)

Also, you will not see adjectives (형용사) like 좋다, 있다, 없다 used with object particles (을/를). They are essentially intransitive verbs (can’t take objects). If I had to make a direct grammar references, it’s similar to how you have predicate adjectives and predicate nominatives in English. These adjectives in Korean will always be used with topic markers (은/는) and subject markers (이/가)

가지다 is actually a verb, or 동사, meaning that it will take objects. It’s often used when you talk about bringing something. You might say 소주(를) 가져왔어요.

Also, the ~기도 하다 part of this sentence best equates with “too/also” in my opinion.

You may want to check out some of the grammar explanations here: Lesson 18: Present Progressive ~고 있다; To be Getting ~아/어지다

If you’re confused, this tends to be helpful as the author is a native English speaker. It’s a nice page to reference from time to time.

Hope it helps :smiley:

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Thanks for the detailed explanation! It totally makes sense now.
Actually, in addition to the use of the present progressive tense here, I also found I was confused by not knowing the verb 가지다 (it’s spelling makes me feel like it’s one of conjugations of 가다 :joy:) Anyway, now I totally understand!

edit: typo