Hi Mojave, Let me try my very first answer in italki. :) >그게 말이 되나요? Does that make sense? >말이 되는 것 같아요? Does it possibly (or likely) make sense? It’s actually “does it sound like it make sense?” but do we use this expression in English? >말이 되나요? Make sense? >그 것은 뜻이 있나요? Does it have a (or any) meaning? >그 게 뜻은 있나요? Does it have a meaning? As you see, there is difference between “does it have a meaning?” and “does it make sense?” - pretty much the same difference in those Korean sentences. * 되다 As you know, “되다” is “become” but conceptually its coverage is quite similar to “make”. 1+1은 2가 된다 / 1+1 makes 2 1+1 은2 다 / 1+1 is 2 “된다” is focusing on the activity that one thing is transformed into the other like “make”. I have 4. Another 4 makes 8. 난 4가지고 있다. 4 더 있으면 8이 된다. * 말 Not only that abstract nouns have conceptual meanings, but material nouns are also stored in our brains as concept. As littlething mentions, 말 is literally anything that we speak and we understand – simple definition makes the range quite wide. Does it make 말? / 말이 되나요? that makes 말 / 말이 된다. Are you speaking 말? / 너 지금 말이라고 하는 거야? “너 지금 말하는 거야?” could also be that way but could be ambiguous as well . it could be actually “speaking 말(a language).“ Is that 말? / 그게 말이야? – let’s replace 말 with something simular in English. For instance, language. Even though language is a bit narrow and a bit physical compared to “sense” (or maybe it’s covering some other area), people would catch the meaning. Does it make more 말? 이게 더 말이 되나요? 말 is perfectly matching to the meaning of sense. Because its definition is so simple and it covers everything. Koreans are trained to associate 말 with anything that make sense in the wide coverage. Thanks.

The word "말(이) 되다" is an idiom. In Korean language, the word "말" has many different meanings. It means a word, words, phrase, sentence, or say, talk, story, rumor, gossip, etc. Thus, the idiom "말이 되다" means "to form a complete sentence" that is, "to make sense". For that reason, "to make sense" mean "이치에 맞다", "의미를 이루다", "의미가 통하다" or "이해가 되다/이해되다". 그것은 뜻이 있나요? (or 그것은 어떤 의미를 가지고 있나요?) 그게 뜻은 있나요? (or 그것에 어떤 의미가 있나요?) Does meaning exist in that? (Does that make sense?) Of course, your sentences make sense. However, the word "뜻" has also many different meanings in Korean. In this case, the meaning of "뜻" should be used in the meaning of "의미".