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I am using Google Translate to say the following sentence in Korean:

Hello! I am Brian, a 2nd year computer science college student and a newcomer to Seoul.

And this sentence came out:

안녕하세요! 저는 2학년 컴퓨터 과학 대학생이자 서울에 새로 온 브라이언입니다.

I do understand the translation except for one thing: I do not know exactly what the suffix -이자 attached at the end of 대학생 is for.

In addition, when I translated through GT a similar sentence—

Hello! I am Brian, a 2nd year computer science college student and a new fan.

—the translation is:

안녕하세요! 저는 2학년 컴퓨터 과학 대학생이자 새로운 팬인 브라이언 입니다.

I do not also know what the suffix -인 attached at the end of 팬 stands for.

Can you guys help me out with this? Thanks!

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  • google translate is good for a quick reference but it might be wrong. It is not good for learning subtle grammar like this. Have you been able to confirm if the sentence itself is correct or not?
    – user17915
    Sep 12, 2019 at 9:05

3 Answers 3

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"-이자" means "-인, 그리고". "-인" is a conjugated form of "-이다". The conjugation was intended to contain multiple sentences in a single sentence.

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I think Usin answered well. But I didn't understand about what Usin write in second sentence. 'A인 B' means 'B who/that is A. '-인' is used when you want to speak subject(브라이언) as something subject is(대학생).

And also '저는 컴퓨터 과학을 전공하고 있는 대학교 2학년이자,~~' sounds more natural (as a Korean native speaker).

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이자 here means and. Here is another example I found:

제품 기획자이자 마케터 역할도 해야 하죠.

You have to play the roll of both a product planner and a marketer.

is the the modifying form of the verb 이다, which means to be. So in your example,

새로운 팬인 브라이언

this phrase translates to "Brian, who is a new fan."

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