(은/는)커녕
(eun/neun)keonyeong
Grammar · 1 sense
much less, not only
Examples
유경은 대학교커녕 초등학교도 다니지 못했다.
Yugyeong wasn't able to attend elementary school, much less college.
그 시절 운동은 커녕 하루의 절반은 누워 있었다.
Back then, not only did I not exercise, I spent half of each day lying down.
1999년에 지구 멸망은커녕 멀쩡하게 잘 돌아가고 있었다.
Not only did the world not end in 1999, everything was going just fine.
When you'd hear it
This pattern appears in both conversation and writing, often when correcting an expectation or emphasizing how far reality was from it. It is common in personal stories, news, and drama dialogue, and is not especially formal.
What learners get wrong
Unlike 단순히 not only, 커녕 presents the first item as something that did not happen and contrasts it with an even more basic or unexpected reality. With nouns, attach 은/는; verbs and adjectives commonly use -기는커녕 instead.
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