This one was tricky. Thanks to everyone on lang-8 who helped explain this!



The meanings can be separated into two types, but they are both similar. The first clause in the sentence reports what a person intends to do or says they are going to do, and the second clause shows the contrasting truth of events. It can be used like ~ㄴ다면서 or ~ㄴ다고 하면서, but the speaker is always disapproving or dissatisfied about the result in the second clause. It seems kind of sarcastic.



도서관에 간답시고 나가서 놀기만 했다.

He said he was going go to the library, but then he just played outside.



This sentence has two possible meanings. He either really intended to go to the library but then he couldn’t so he just played outside (maybe the library was closed?), or he was pretending to be planning to go to the library. So it could mean both “도서관에 가려고 한다고 했지만 못 갔다” or “도서관에 간 척하면서 안 갔다.”



Let’s look at some other examples:



그가 집안 일을 도와준답시고 내 스웨터를 물에 빨았더니 줄어들게 했다.

He said he’d help with the household chores, but then he shrunk my sweater in the wash.



그녀는 내년에 일본에서 일하고 싶어해서 일본어를 열심히 공부한답시고 알파벳 외에는 아무것도 공부하지 않았어요.

She wants to work in Japan next year so she said she’ll study Japanese diligently, but she didn’t study anything but the alphabet.



~답시고



This grammar structure can also be used with descriptive verbs. In this case, you don’t put include the ㄴ before 답시고 (e.g. 예쁘답시고, 좋답시고).



A great example of how to use this grammar structure with descriptive verbs was provided by mingu on lang-8. Thanks!



A: 난 똑똑해서 수학을 잘 해.

B: 그럼 이 문제 한번 풀어 봐. 그렇게 어렵지 않은 문제야.

A: 못 풀겠는데…

B: 똑똑하답시고 [똑똑하다고 (말)했으면서] 이 문제 하나를 못 푸니?



A: I’m smart so I’m good at math.

B: Then try to solve this problem. It’s not that difficult.

A: I can’t solve that…

B: You say you’re smart but you can’t solve this one problem?



So again, it highlights the contrast between what is claimed is true and what occurs in reality, with disapproval.



~랍시고



This one isn’t listed on the TOPIK grammar test but goes along with ~답시다. Think of it as “It was called a ____, but_____”. Again, a tone of sarcasm/disapproval.



너는 그것도 영어랍시고 미국 사람들 앞에서 말하는 거니?

You call that English but would you say it in front of Americans?



상이랍시고 받아 보니 나한테는 필요도 없는 책 몇 권뿐이었어요.

I won something they called an award but it was just a few books that are of no use to me.



I took the two examples above from a Japanese blog. You can check their page out for more examples: http://00mai00.blog110.fc2.com/blog-entry-50.html.