Grammar
-다는 것은 -다는 뜻이다
Meaning
Advanced-daneun geoseun -daneun tteusida
A two-part frame for explaining what a fact amounts to. The first half takes a whole clause, packs it into a noun with -다는 것, and marks it as the topic with 은: 원충이 검출됐다는 것은 'the fact that the parasite was detected'. The second half then says what that fact means, packed the same way and closed with 뜻이다: 감염될 확률이 높아진다는 뜻입니다 'means the chance of infection goes up'. The whole thing restates rather than adds — the second clause is the first one translated into consequences, which is why public-health notices, explainers and science reporting lean on it to turn a laboratory result into something a reader can act on.
Form
Both halves use the same -다는 shape. A verb takes -ㄴ다는 after a vowel or ㄹ and -는다는 after a consonant (높아진다는, 검출된다는, 먹는다는); an adjective and 있다/없다 take -다는 (어렵다는, 없다는); a past event takes -았/었다는 (검출됐다는, 끝났다는); a noun takes -(이)라는 (학생이라는). The first half then adds 것은, the second adds 뜻이다, which conjugates at the end for tense and politeness (뜻입니다, 뜻이다, 뜻이었습니다). Both slots need a full clause, not a bare noun. 말이다 and 의미이다 substitute for 뜻이다 in the same frame, 말이다 being the more conversational of the three.
Examples
불이 켜졌다는 것은 준비가 끝났다는 뜻입니다.
For the light to be on means the preparation is finished.
Common mistakes & nuance
Read the second half as a restatement, not as a second finding. 매개모기에서 원충이 검출됐다는 것은 물렸을 때 감염될 확률이 높아진다는 뜻입니다 reports one thing — a detection — and then says what it implies; counting the rise in risk as a separate measured fact double-counts the story. The frame is also where a writer's inference gets attached to someone else's data, so it is worth asking who is doing the interpreting. On the form side, the split that catches learners is verb versus adjective: -는다는 is for verbs and -다는 for adjectives, so 어렵다는 뜻입니다 is right and 어려운다는 뜻입니다 is not. And do not confuse -다는 것은 with -(으)ㄴ 것은: the second is the past modifier used for cleft sentences, and swapping it in here would ask which thing happened rather than what the happening means.
Similar grammar
- -(으)ㄴ 것은 -이다
Both nominalise a clause with 것 and mark it with 은, and then they ask different questions. -(으)ㄴ 것은 -이다 is a cleft: it takes something already known to have happened and identifies which case it is (공개한 것은 이번이 처음이다 — the disclosure happened, and this one is the first). -다는 것은 -다는 뜻이다 takes a fact and says what follows from it. One picks out an item, the other draws a consequence.
- -(ㄴ/는)다는 + N
The same -다는 ending feeds both, and the noun it lands on decides what the phrase does. With 지적, 해석, 전망 or 계획 it packages someone's statement (어렵다는 지적 — the criticism that it is difficult), so the content is attributed. With 것 in this frame the content is not attributed to anyone; it is simply the fact under discussion. Watch the noun before you decide whether a source is being quoted.