Grammar
N에 힘입어
Meaning
AdvancedN e himibeo
힘입다 is 힘 ('strength') and 입다 ('to receive') fused into one verb, so N에 힘입어 is literally 'drawing strength from N' — on the back of N, carried along by N. It names the favourable driver behind a good outcome, and the outcome has to be good: a company can post a record 판매 호조에 힘입어, but nothing is ever 힘입어 a loss. Earnings and growth reporting leans on it because it credits a cause while staying in formal register, and because the noun in front of it is where the writer's whole explanation of the quarter actually sits.
Form
Noun + 에 + 힘입어, written as separate words. The noun names what did the pushing — 수출 증가에 힘입어, 판매 호조에 힘입어, 정부 지원에 힘입어 — and 에 is fixed here, with (으)로 not available as a substitute. 힘입어 is the -아/어 connective form of 힘입다, and it is the form news almost always uses, standing in front of the clause that states the result. The modifier form 힘입은 also appears before a noun (실적에 힘입은 주가 상승); the finite 힘입었다 exists but is far rarer than the connective.
Examples
수출 증가에 힘입어 경제가 살아났습니다.
Helped by rising exports, the economy recovered.
Common mistakes & nuance
The rule worth holding on to is the direction: 힘입어 introduces only a cause that made something turn out well. Put a bad outcome after it and the sentence breaks — 적자가 늘었다 needs (으)로 인해, -의 영향으로 or 때문에 instead. Note next that the noun in front is a driver the writer is crediting, not a proven cause: an earnings story saying 신작 게임에 힘입어 매출이 늘었습니다 is reporting an attribution, and the revenue figure by itself does not establish it. That is worth reading carefully, because the phrase makes a company's own framing sound like arithmetic. One spelling point: 힘입다 is a single verb, so write it solid — 힘입어, never 힘 입어.
Similar grammar
- -덕분에
The closest match, separated by register. Both are positive-only, but 덕분에 carries gratitude and works in ordinary speech about people (선생님 덕분에), while 힘입어 is written business register and takes an impersonal driver (수출 증가에 힘입어). They also attach differently: 덕분에 can follow a clause through -(으)ㄴ/는, whereas 힘입어 wants a bare noun with 에.
- N(으)로 인해
The neutral one. (으)로 인해 states a cause and lets the outcome be anything, which is why bad news reaches for it (폭우로 인해 열차가 멈췄습니다) — a sentence 힘입어 cannot cover at all. So when an article switches from 힘입어 to (으)로 인해 partway through, the sign of the result has usually switched with it.
- 때문에
때문에 is the plain, all-purpose 'because' — usable in speech and in writing, with any kind of outcome, and in practice tilting toward blame when the outcome is bad. 힘입어 is narrower on both axes at once (formal register, good outcome only), so choosing it is a decision the writer made, not the default way to state a cause.