#27. 죽빵 -- Punch them in the face

I love comic books. These are great to wind down a busy day with, because you don't have to do a lot of work to enjoy them. No need to imagine the scenes in my head, because they're already drawn in. And there is something inherently funny about the onomatopoeia that get used in comic books. I would never say "KAPOW" or "BLAM" or "ZAP" in real life, but I kind of wish that everyone would start using these words more often, because these words are so lively and full of dynamic energy, with a touch of vulgarity.

It turns out that the Koreans are actually better at using these words in real life. Sure, they shouldn't be used in formal settings. But to me, these words add a bit of slapstick spark to our lives when they do get used.

Here are a couple of Korean onomatopoeia that you will see in comic books, or 만화.

First is the word "주욱," which you might recognize better by its variations such as "주우욱," "주우우우욱," "쭉," "쭈욱," etc. This word means to reach out. For example, if a cartoon character was stretching, there might be the word "주욱" written in the background. Since you're reaching out, it sometimes makes sense to write out the longer version of the word such as "주우우우우욱" to describe the length of the stretch and the reach.

This word also gets used in everyday Korean, in contexts such as "주욱 뻗은 길" meaning "the (straight) road that stretches way out," or "쭉 뻗은 나무" meaning "the tall (straight) tree."

The second onomatopoeia doesn't need a lot of explanation; the word is "빵." Although I have just said that "빵" is an adjective for well-inflated objects, there is one other meaning for it. When you hit someone, "빵" is the sound you make.

So when you use these two words together to create a new slang "죽빵," first of all, it is vulgar (not in a profanity type way, but in the comic-book informality), and it means that you are reaching out (죽) to hit (빵). Well, when you reach out to hit, you usually end up punching people squarely in the face. It's slightly entertaining that you can count these things, and the unit of count is "대." So one 죽빵 is "죽빵 한 대," and two 죽빵 is "죽빵 두 대," etc.

When you dish out a 죽빵 to someone.

Remembering that we are using a comic book-style word, so whenever you use it, it's definitely going to be funny. So it's used mostly in an exaggerated way. For example, if your little brother is being annoying, you might threaten him by saying:

나한테 죽빵 한 대 맞고싶어?  (Do you want to get punched in the face?)

 If your friend 준호 accidentally hit you in the face, you might rant to your other friends about how you got beaten up by your friend by saying,

방금 준호가 나한테 죽빵을 날렸어 (준호 flew a 죽빵 at me; 준호 punched me in the face.)

If you got involved in a bar fight, and managed to get in a good one before you got broken up,  you might later brag to your friends by saying:

어제 싸우면서 죽빵 한 대 갈겼어 (I landed a 죽빵 last night in a fight.)

Note that various verbs describe the act of landing a 죽빵. As it was never a proper word to begin with, you can choose the verbs that seems to go well with the context. Even if it were not used previously, if the Koreans agree with you that the verb was appropriate, maybe it'll even catch on! As always, the important thing in Korean internet slang is to experiment, and to be creative.

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#26. 궁예질 -- Mind-reading

Here's a question that is perhaps a bit cliché, but fascinating nonetheless: let's say that you're the king of a nation. Unfortunately, as things go for most kings, there are a few people that you're not so fond of, and you'd like to get rid of them. How would you go about accomplishing such a task? One Korean man was so bizarre in his ways in trying to achieve this goal, that it ultimately led him to the internet fame of Korea.

You may remember the kingdom of 신라 (Silla) from an earlier post. In that post, 신라 was the driving force behind the destruction of the kingdom of 백제 (Baekje), and the cause of the death of (supposedly) three thousand palace maidens. Although 신라 lasted almost 300 years longer than 백제 after unifying the three kingdoms, it too eventually came to its demise by a man named 궁예. He was a supporting character (but really, more memorable than the main character!) in the wildly popular Korean drama "태조 왕건" about fifteen years ago, and most Koreans imagine 궁예 to look like this guy:

A quick biography: rumour has it that he was a prince of 신라, but due to various political reasons, he was thrown off a high building to be killed as an infant. Thankfully, his nurse was waiting at the base of the building and caught him as he was flung off, although she poked one of his eyes with her finger while catching him. He was raised as a Buddhist monk after this. As a result, 궁예 was very hostile towards 신라, which has already weakened considerably, and eventually claimed parts of 신라 as his own country (what the country was called isn't really important; the man couldn't make up his mind and changed the name of this country several times, and probably the Koreans don't remember this either.)

As a king, he focused heavily on strengthening his power against the nobles. He accomplished this by claiming himself to be the living Buddha (going by the name of "미륵"), and claiming that he could read people's minds. Of course, he then read that his political enemies were thinking about rebelling against him, which was good enough for him to execute them. Not surprisingly, people soon had enough of his antics, and they really did rebel against him, leading to the destruction of his country, and the establishment of 고려 (Goryo, which is where the name "Korea" comes from!)

While the opinions differ on what kind of a man he was (he even killed his own wife through his "mind-reading skills," but perhaps he was a very talented politician), the internet found its own way to immortalize this memorable figure.

For example, say that you're spacing out with no expression on your face. Your friend is walking by and sees you spacing out, and decides that judging by the expressionless face that you're wearing, you must have had a bad day. Not just a bad day, but since your expression looked sad, you probably broke up with your significant other. In fact, you must have been dumped since you look like you're on the verge of tears. In your annoyance, you could tell your friend:

궁예질 좀 그만해! (Stop trying to read my mind as if you're 궁예!)

The new word is "궁예질," made up of two parts "궁예" and "질." The word "질" is a derogatory suffix that attaches itself to nouns (usually body parts or job titles) with negative connotations. For example, "손가락질" is supposed to denote negative actions done with your fingers, so it means "pointing at someone to deride them." "선생질" is supposed to emphasize the negative aspects of being a teacher, maybe dealing with disrespectful students, or maybe having students with very low grades.

So in our context, "궁예질" is talking about the negative aspects of "궁예," or "mind-reading," in a derogatory way. Put in another words, the word "궁예질" is making fun (in a derogatory way) of the people who infer things from where there is no meaning.

For the people who blow things out of proportion by drawing incorrect conclusions because they were too imaginative, I might say (with a certain amount of sarcasm):

궁예질이 너무 심하다 (your mind-reading is really too much).

While 궁예 is really a well-known figure in the Korean history because of his antics, and most Koreans will pick up on your meaning if you use this word, there is a mix of sarcasm and condescension placed on this word, and you should only use it when you want to insult someone. Likely you will see this word online the most!

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#25. 포돌이 -- This wonderful Korean character has no parallel

Once upon a time, the Koreans got tired of the negative public image of the Korean police force. In order to ensure that the Koreans could perceive the police force as friendly and approachable, the Korean police force decided to re-brand themselves by creating a mascot. Below is the culmination of their efforts.

This adorable character's name is 포돌이 (the letter "포" comes from "police," and "돌이" is a suffix to describe an affectionate male nickname. For example, if you have a friend who eats ("먹다") all the time, you call him "먹돌이"; if someone sleeps ("잠자다") all the time, you call him "잠돌이". For women, use the suffix "-순이" instead of "-돌이" to get "포순이," "먹순이," and "잠순이.")  He looked cute, he looked friendly, and it seemed that the re-branding efforts would be a total success.

However, the police officials neglected to take one thing into account.

They forgot that they lived in Korea.

There was no way that the fun-loving Koreans would leave this character alone. First came pictures like below from the (presumably) part-time workers taking a break from masquerading in the 포돌이 costume:

They definitely look approachable, at least if you just need a cigarette.

However, the real boost in the status of the mascot came from a very unlikely place even within the internet culture. Here is a portion of the webtoon that brought 포돌이 to the elevated status that it enjoys today. This webtoon is extracted from a horror series called "공부하기 좋은 날" (A good day for studying). Its episodes often feature a dark motif or a ghost. The artist of this webtoon is renowned for his horrifying images that are sure to haunt you in the dark, especially if you try to sleep too soon after reading one of his episodes. I hesitate to prove my claim with real examples, but here are two connecting episodes that illustrate a typical work of this artist. WARNING: DO NOT CLICK IF YOU ARE NOT INTO HORROR. You will have no trouble understanding the rest of the post even if you do not read these. Here is installment #1, and installment #2.

Here are the summary of each of the episodes to ease the Korean translation. Drag your mouse over the blank space to reveal the spoilers:

Installment #1: A freelancer mother and her son move to a new apartment. The son loves the new apartment, and visits the playground in front of their house daily to play with his new friends. At first the mother does not worry since she can see and hear the playground from their house. but she comes to the realization that she can only hear her son's voice and no one else's.
Installment #2: When the mother looks out, she sees no one in the playground. In a panic, she goes outside to find her son, only to find him in front of their apartment returning to do his homework. When she interrogates him about no one else being in the playground, he says that everyone else left to do their homework too. She tries to see if the playground is cursed, but no one knows anything about it. That night, in her dream, she dreams that her son is going out to the playground to play again. She opens the curtain to see the playground only to see a terrifying figure appear in front of her window and faints. When she realizes that everything was a dream, she breathes a sigh of relief, only to realize that her son was the terrifying figure, and that it was not a dream.

This particular episode seemed like it was no different. A student begins by ranting about the reality of the high school English education in Korea:

The English classes are useless. Exactly what kind of abilities do they hope to measure by an English test?
It is impossible to measure the speaking skills, and one could maybe test whether some words or grammar points are memorized.
That's why one cannot be good at English through the classes provided at school. High school English is merely memorizing words, grammar, and sentences.

I won't succumb to such terrible curriculum. The society wants nothing more than good grades. That is, I just need to do well on the tests!!

By the way, the student's soliloquy aligns quite well with how the Korean students often feel about school subjects. They are not the most effective ways to learn, but as the school grades are so important in the university entrance exam, they have no choice but to follow the curriculum to get good grades. After all, the society cares only about good grades!

So the student decides to sneak into the teachers' office one night, and steal the exam papers in advance.

 

If you are a fan of this particular artist, this is the point where you nearly close your eyes and scroll very slowly, because this is about the point where a very horrifying ghost figure appears. It could be the ghost of a student who killed himself because of bad grades, it could be the ghost of a school caretaker rumoured to be roaming the school grounds punishing the bad students, etc. However...

Well, 포돌이 can be just as terrifying.

Don't cheat, people.

These last two cuts became quite famous in the Korean internet culture, because the irony in these scenes were too great. The contrast of the outrageously cheerful face of 포돌이 against the dark mood, along with the fact that a student is being arrested, was pure hilarity. To this day, these cuts are used over and over again in the internet culture, and 포돌이 became a real celebrity!

I end with one more related word: "철컹철컹." To many Koreans, this word should remind you of 포돌이 (the creepy version, I suppose). This is because "철컹철컹" is an onomatopoeia for the clang of metal, or in our case, the clang of the handcuffs as they close around your wrists. You will see this word appear when an internet user makes not-safe-for-work sexual remarks, especially in the context that might remind people of child pornography. Although the internet users are sending a serious warning towards the target, they are also reminding themselves of the cheerfully creepy face of 포돌이. Some people prefer to use the phrase "잡았다 요놈," or "I got you, you rascal," which is something 포돌이 might say, as he slaps those handcuffs on you. Both words are fairly humorous in nuance, although it is a word definitely reserved for close friends, or for the internet.

All jokes aside, 포돌이 is still the leading face of the Korean police force. As far as the re-branding efforts go, I would say that he is a huge success, as no other mascot has the popularity of 포돌이. And although we will never know what life would have been like without 포돌이, I like to think that he contributed to changing the image of the Korean police force.

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#24. 팩트폭행 -- The truth hurts

Believe it or not, according to the reports of the Korean internet users, the following conversation is said to have taken place in a Korean school during a history class.

Student: It really is too bad that polygamy is no longer a thing.
Teacher: Actually, you should be grateful that polygamy is no longer accepted.
Student: ???
Teacher: If we still practiced polygamy, you would never be able to marry because people like 송중기 will have 100 wives each.

This is 송중기, a very popular Korean actor.

Okay, that hurts, but that's also probably true, and that student definitely got pwned by his teacher, so to speak. His friends probably made fun of him after the history class was over, and they might have said something like:

선생님한테 팩트폭행 당했네 (You got pwned by the teacher bluntly telling you the truth.)

The word "팩트폭행" is made up of two parts, "팩트" and "폭행." The first word is the Koreanization of the English word "fact," and the second word means "assault."

To go a little bit deeper into the nuance of the second word, it is a pretty official word, as if you are charged with the assault of someone, you would be charged with "폭행죄" ("죄" means "sin" or "crime" -- as Christianity came into Korea fairly late, the word "죄" is used for both legal and religious contexts.)

As for the word "폭행," it has Chinese origins. The letter "폭" means violent (for example, "폭풍" means violent winds, or "storm"; "폭식" means to violently eat, or "binge-eat"; "폭행" is a violent "폭"action "행", or "assault.)

Putting these two words together, "팩트폭행" means that you have been violently assaulted by the means of the truth, which is a pretty accurate description of what happened in that history class. You can replace "폭행" with other words that describe violent actions, and get words such as "팩트폭력 (폭력 also means violent assault, but it pertains more to the bullying-type assaults, where one side is decidedly stronger)", "팩트폭격 (a bombardment of facts)," and so on.

Also remember that it is usually the case that when a new word is made by combining an English word and a Korean word (such as in 발퀄, 이불킥, or 프로 불만러) the resulting word is almost always pretty humorous. This is another instance of this claim, so there's definite sense of amusement and humour when you are using this word in a sentence. As usual, this word originated from the internet, and although not inherently offensive, I would play it safe and use this word only with my friends.

Finally, Koreans like to shorten words, especially if it's made up of multiple words. In our case, since "팩트폭행" is made up of two words "팩트" and "폭행," you will often see Koreans shorten this word to "팩폭" by just using the first letter of each word, especially on the internet. Since the Korean slang is very quickly evolving, it is actually not so easy for even a native Korean to guess the meaning of these shortened forms of words without looking them up! But then, it's kind of fun to try and guess what they mean as well.

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Listening exercise with transcript #4: What does he like about you?

Here is a short video clip. Without giving anything away, try to listen and see how much you can understand. The transcript is provided below. You may want to turn off the English subtitles. It is remarkably free of slang, and the informality of the dialogue is very much the kind of conversation that you could have with your close friends, so it might be worth it to practice!

진짜 싫다. 사람들이 알아? 너 평소에 이러고 사는거. 옷을 입었다가 더러워서 빨래통에 넣었다가 결국 입을게 없어서 그걸 다시 꺼내서 입고 심지어 그걸 밖에서도 아무렇지 않게 입고 돌아다니는거, 그사람은 혹시 아나해서. (이래봬도 쓸만해!) 너는 손이 많이가. 나정도 되니까 이런말도 해주는건데, (뭐지?) 너 이러면 사람들이 싫어한다니까? (가!) 좀 안흘리고 먹을수 없어? 이제 막 이유식 뗀 애도 아니고. 욕심은 또 왜 이렇게 많냐? 니가 잘못해놓고 니가 화내고. 먹을것만보면 환장하고. (나 한입만) 하. 안귀엽거든? (야, 우리 가위바위보해서 진사람이 우산사오기할래?) 불길해. 느낌이 안좋아. 아니 너같이 이기적이고 배려심없고 명령 잘하고 가식적이고 예쁜척하는 애가, 아.. 내 옆에 있다는게 불길해. (야, 너 내가 여자로 보인적 있어?) 내가 돌았냐? 내가 아무리... 내가 여자가 없어도. 근데 걔, 니 오빤지 뭔지, 걘 니 어디가 좋대? 좋긴 좋대냐?

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#23. 넘사벽 -- Try as you might

Superstitious people are everywhere. In North America, 13 is considered unlucky (I'm not really sure why; maybe because there were 13 people at the table during the last supper) and you sometimes see the 13th floor missing entirely from high-rise buildings.

In Korea, the number to avoid (along with 13, because why not) is four. This is because the number four, pronounced "사" in Korean, sounds exactly like the Chinese character 死 meaning death (for example, "사형" means the capital punishment, "사신" means the messenger of death, "사약" means the poisonous drink that people were required to drink in the olden days when they were given the death penalty). So in many Korean buildings, both the fourth and the thirteenth floors are missing.

Anyway, there's a Korean internet slang word "넘사벽." It is often used in the context such as this: Say that you figure skate as a hobby, and a friend compliments you on your skating skills, going as far as saying things like how you skate like the famous Yuna Kim (김연아.) Then you are embarrassed because you're not actually that good, and you say something like, "Oh, I will never even come close to catching up to Yuna Kim." In Korean, you could say:

김연아는 넘사벽이야.

If you were chatting on the internet, you might have typed instead:

 김연아 >>>>>>>넘사벽>>>>>> 나 (Yuna Kim >>>> 넘사벽 >>>>> me.)

When I first heard the word in a sentence, it was clear that the word "넘사벽" was clearly a shortened form, because I didn't see how to break up "넘사벽" into different words. Before reading on, try to guess what this word means -- it wasn't completely obvious to me, even as a native speaker (and the exact meaning of the catchiest internet slang can usually be interpreted!)
 

The famous skater Yuna Kim, whom every Korean can recognize.

From the context, it seemed obvious that the word "넘사벽" should mean "incomparable," or "way beyond my abilities." But in the word "넘사벽," I only recognized one word inside it, namely "벽" or "wall." Combined with the context, it felt like the word should come from the well-known phrase "넘을수 없는 벽" or "insurmountable wall."

That took care of the letters "넘" and "벽," but where did the letter "사" come from? At this point, I was left completely on my own to take a stab in the dark. My guess was that the letter "사" came from "death," combining to suggest that the word "넘사벽" means "a wall that you can't overcome, even if you died trying." Satisfied with this meaning, I happily went about my way around the Korean internet world (and I suppose you could use this word with anyone, since it's not offensive and the meaning is guessable.)

A few years later, though, I learned that the original intended meaning of "넘사벽" was not a wall that you cannot overcome even in death, but actually a shortened form of "넘을수 없는 사차원의 벽," or "an insurmountable four-dimensional wall."

Oh well. I was a little bit off, but I wasn't the only one, and many Koreans guessed that the letter "사" came from "death" rather than "four." Plus, the meaning still wasn't lost. Such is the way of the Korean internet slang.

Apparently, this word presented more of a challenge to some than the others, though. Some people thought that this word meant "넘을수 없는 사랑의 벽," or "an insurmountable wall of love," but that really shouldn't have made sense from the context (although it would be pretty hilarious in the right context!) In any case, I thought you might enjoy seeing how a native Korean speaker goes about figuring out the new slang word that they encounter on the internet (and get it wrong!)

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#22. 만렙 -- You're the best

I was an elementary school student in Korea in the late 90s and early 2000s, when Starcraft was just gaining its popularity. I was never a teen in Korea, and I was more interested in comic books and cute K-pop boy bands, so I never played Starcraft. Despite this, I heard about Starcraft daily from my classmates. If we were to form groups for some projects, our group name was invariably going to be Protoss or Terran, or some variation thereof (apparently, Zergs were too ugly to be considered a good name!) I listened to my classmates brag about their actions per minute, or the latest strategy, and none of this was strange to me. It was a bit of a shock to realize that the gamers were fairly rare in the Western world, when practically everyone in Korea could be considered a gamer.

Well, gamers naturally end up spending a ton of time on the internet, so when most of your population is a gamer, gamer lingo is sure to seep into your internet slang. Now that I reflect on it, I am surprised that I managed to avoid talking about the gamer slang for the majority of my posts so far. The only words coming from gamer language so far would be "항마력" and "용자."

But here is another word that clearly comes from the gaming culture.

When I was living in Korea, I had a friend who never got anything other than 100% on her math exams. Although this expression did not exist then, if I see her now, I'd want to tell her that:

넌 정말 수학에 있어서는 만렙이다. (As far as math is concerned, you are really the best.)

The slang here is the word "만렙." The word "렙" is a shortened form for "레벨," or "level (as in, the level of a game; the Koreans never use it like in the sentence 'level the ground.')" Koreans really like to shorten words, and this is just one instance of such contraction. So for example, in gaming language, if someone has just started playing and has pretty low stats, you could call them "0렙 (level 0)," "1렙 (level 1)," or "저렙 (low level; "저" is a Chinese letter meaning "low," as in "저지대 (low-lying area)," "저원 (low-lying field)," or "저퀄리티 (low quality)")." In contrast, someone who has high stats can be called "고렙 (high level; "고" is a Chinese letter meaning "high," as in "고지대," "고원," "고퀄리티," etc.)"

The word "만" comes from Chinese, and it means "full." The most common usage you see in Korea, of course, is how the Koreans count their age. When the Koreans want to talk about their age in the Western sense (where you age one year when you have lived out a full year), they will say:

제 나이는 만으로 스물 두 살이에요 (I have lived twenty-two years in full; I'm 22 in the Western sense.)

Putting the above two words together, "만렙" means that your stats are full; that is, there is no room to improve. So, if I were telling my friend that she is "만렙" in math, I'm telling her that no one is better than her in math, and that she pretty much has nowhere to improve. In short, I am giving her the highest compliment.

You can also use this word in the gaming setting (or any situation that reminds you of a gaming setting.) When someone achieves the highest level in a game, the correct way to use this slang is to use the verb "만렙을 찍다." For example, you can say:

너 어제 만렙 찍었다면서? (I heard that you got to the final level yesterday.)

Unfortunately, this word has such strong gamer origins that it is inappropriate to use in a formal setting (although no one would be offended by it, it would be pretty strange to use this to your grandparents, for example!) But it's a widespread word nonetheless, and given the affinity to video games in Korea, most people who use the internet will understand the word!

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