At what time were you waking up while you were there? in Korean 🇰🇷

Sentence info.

The sentence “거기 있는 동안 몇 시에 일어났습니까?” breaks down as follows:

• 거기 (geogi) – “there,” referring to a place.
• 있는 (inneun) – the present adjectival form of “있다” (“to be/exist”), modifying “동안” to specify “while being there.”
• 동안 (dongan) – “during” or “while,” indicating a time span.
• 몇 시에 (myeot sie) – “at what time,” where “몇” means “how many” (used here for time) and “시” means “hour,” with the time marker “에.”
• 일어났습니까? (il-eonassseumnikka?) – the past formal interrogative form of “일어나다” (“to wake up” or “to get up”).

Tip: Notice that Korean places time expressions (몇 시에) before the main verb (일어났습니까?) and attaches particles like “에” to indicate the time of the action. The clause “거기 있는 동안” functions as a time-setting adverbial phrase, meaning “while being there.” Memorizing common particles like “동안” for “during/while” and “에” for time can help you construct similar sentences.

Alternate ways to say “At what time were you waking up while you were there?” might be:
• “거기 있을 때 몇 시에 일어나고 있었습니까?” (Geogi isseul ttae myeot sie il-eonago isseosseumnikka?) – Here “있을 때” is another way of expressing “while you were there” and “일어나고 있었습니까?” uses the past progressive tense to emphasize the ongoing nature of the waking up action.
• “거기 있을 때 보통 몇 시에 일어나셨어요?” (Geogi isseul ttae botong myeot sie il-eonasyosseoyo?) – This version adds “보통” (“usually”) for nuance and uses a less formal ending.

a few seconds ago