A big accident almost happened.

Hi all. Earlier today, I was on my way to the gym after a nice morning jog with a couple of friends. I was driving on a motorway when I saw two pillows lying across the first and second lanes! One of them was a normal pillow but the other one was one of those extra long body pillows. Luckily I was driving on the third lane but it looked so dangerous. I hope there was no big accidents because of that.


A big accident almost happened.
큰 사고 날 뻔했어요.


큰, kn, big
사고, sago, accident
날, nal, occur (나다)
뻔했어요, bbunhatsoyo, almost happened (뻔하다)


큰 사고 날 뻔했어요.
kn sago nal bbunhatsoyo.


When something has almost happened, we use -ㄹ 뻔하다 expression.

I almost missed the bus. -> 버스를 놓칠 뻔했어요.
The movie was so funny, it almost killed me with laughter. -> 영화가 너무 재밌어서, 웃다가 죽을 뻔했어요.

You can use 일 (il, incident or event) instead of 사고 in today's sentence. While 사고 is implying a physical accident, '큰 일 날 뻔했어요' can be used to in other non-physical cases too. For example, it can be used when some secret is almost leaked, when you are almost failed on an important exam and so on. '큰 일 났어요' simply means 'we are in trouble'.

Bye for now.

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