Grammar
N을/를 통해
Meaning
IntermediateN eul/reul tonghae
Marks the means, the route or the intermediary something went by — 'through N', 'by means of N'. The noun in front is what the action passed through: a method (설문조사를 통해), a channel (언론을 통해), or a person or body acting as go-between (변호인을 통해). It reports only that the route was used. Whether it worked is a separate claim, and the sentence has to make it separately.
Form
Noun + 을 통해 after a final consonant (협상을 통해), 를 통해 after a vowel (설문조사를 통해). 통해 is the contracted form of 통하여, which official and legal writing still prefers, and 통해서 adds the same optional 서 that -기 위해서 takes, with no change of meaning. To modify a following noun the form is -을/를 통한 N (협상을 통한 해결). When the route is the whole previous sentence, the noun slot is filled by the pronoun 이 and the phrase opens the next sentence: 이를 통해.
Examples
설문조사를 통해 의견을 모았습니다.
Opinions were gathered through a survey.
제도를 고쳤습니다. 이를 통해 대기 시간이 줄었습니다.
The system was revised. Through this, waiting times fell.
Common mistakes & nuance
Keep it apart from N에 의해, which names the doer of a passive sentence rather than the route: 위원회를 통해 발표됐다 says the announcement went out via the committee, while 위원회에 의해 발표됐다 says the committee is the one that announced it. Two cautions for reading news. 통해 makes no claim about the outcome — 협상을 통해 해결을 시도했다 is an attempt, not a settlement. And a whole list can sit inside one 통해, so the noun slot may run much further than it first appears to.
Similar grammar
- -(으)로
-(으)로 is the bare instrumental particle and marks the tool or material an action is done with (칼로 자르다, 한국어로 쓰다). -을/를 통해 marks something the action passes through on the way — a procedure, a channel, an intermediary. Where both would fit, 로 makes the noun the instrument in the doer's hand and 통해 makes it a stage in between.
- 이로써
Both can point back at what was just said, but they treat it differently. 이를 통해 — the pronoun form of this entry — makes the previous sentence the route, so a consequence still has to follow it. 이로써 treats the previous sentence as the thing that completes or settles something, and what follows is the milestone reached: 이로써 모든 준비가 끝났다 closes the matter rather than opening a further step.