#31. Five slang words NOT to use if you want to appear cool

I decided to look around the internet for the English writings on the Korean slang today. And honestly, some of the posts that I found made me cringe. Not because they're incorrect, but because the slang that they introduced were so horribly outdated that even my parents wouldn't use them.

Korea is a very small country. There are very few major channels on TV, there are very few major TV series, and because the culture is reasonably homogeneous, everything spreads quickly. If a celebrity makes an appearance on TV and says something catchy, it could be the hot phrase the next day in all of Korea. Although some of these phrases and slang survive for years, some of them are very short-lived.

The following words are more or less dead. Unless you're trying to use them in an ironic way (for example, you are mocking someone for being old-fashioned), it is probably better to avoid the following words, as they are no longer in use.

• 당근: This word means "of course." In Korean, you would normally say "당연하지." Noticing that the first letter of "당연" and "당근" are the same, some people in the 2000s substituted "당근" and started saying "당근이지," or "당근" for "of course." This was very popular for a long time, but it slowly fell out of use, and is no longer used.
• 하이루: The Koreanization of the word "hi" would of course just be "하이." Back in the 90s, if someone greeted you with "하이," apparently you used to say "하이 too," which got shortened as "하이2 (2 = two = too phonetically)" and then "하이투." Sadly, the resolution wasn't the best back then, and the letters "투" and "루" looked very similar. Eventually "하이루" prevailed.
• 방가: This was often used in online chatting, if you wanted to say "nice to meet you," or "long time no see." The proper Korean would have been "반가워" or "반가워요," but since many Koreans pronounce these as "방가워" and "방가워요," this became popular in the 90s. When someone greeted you with "하이루," you always responded with "방가방가."
• 즐: "즐거운 하루 되세요" or "Have an enjoyable day" is a pretty standard formal goodbye. This gets used by salespeople, by automated machines, and also in games as you're logging out. In the mid-2000s, only the first letter of this word was used by the teens (usually in the chatrooms of online games) to wrap up a conversation. Eventually, it started getting used as "get lost," by dismissively typing out only the first letter of the formal goodbye.
• 안습: This word, also popular in the 2000s, is short for "안구에 습기차다." "안구" is a medical term for "eyeball," and "습기차다" means to "fog up" or "become humid." That is, this is a pretty fancy way of saying "I'm tearing up."

This of course makes Korean slang even trickier! The best way to stay on top of the slang game is to consume as much of the Korean culture as possible, so take some time to look around some of the largest internet communities of Korea, such as DC Inside, Today Humor, Ilbe (although this is politically charged and often shunned by many Koreans), Nate Pann, etc.

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#30. Creatively complaining about your dinner (where's the meat?)

A friend of mine posted a picture of his dinner on Facebook, that looked a lot like the following picture:

This is one of those things that everyone will either love or hate. The banchan (반찬, the side dishes aside from the rice and the soup) are all made up of spring herbs. They might look delicious and very seasonal to some people. But to most Koreans, where vegetarianism is not as common as in North America, it will look like there is not enough protein. Even the soup is made out of spring herbs!

One of the comments posted under my friend's photo had me laughing tears. One of the commenters said:

반찬이 개마고원이네. 대자연을 펼쳐놓은듯.

This is not a standard internet slang. In fact, this is the first time I have heard this expression. But Korean internet users value fresh expressions that are appropriate and humorous to the situation, and I thought that this was a perfect example of such an expression.

In the first half of the above quote, the commenter compares the 반찬 to 개마고원 (Kaema Plateau). Here is the picture of 개마고원:

"고원" means "highland/plateau." "개마" is just the name of this plateau, and it is located in North Korea.

개마고원 is well-known to the Koreans for a couple of reasons.

First of all, it is the largest highland plateau in the Korean peninsula, so you learn to memorize its name in school. It is also known for being home to many wild animals, and it is said to be very well-preserved due to sparse population.

But perhaps more importantly, it is also one of the maps that appear on Starcraft... I suppose I will never know which of these two reasons prompted the above comment, but I have my suspicions.

Anyway, the first part of the quote compares the 반찬 to 개마고원, which seems pretty hilarious both for the comparison, but also the random appearance of 개마고원, which is appropriate but unexpected.

The second half of the quote is also not very different. The commenter says that "대자연,"or "the great nature" is spread out on the table, and the grandeur of the comment contrasts with the simple meal to create humour.

These kinds of fresh expressions are welcomed and well-loved on the Korean internet. This kind of creativity is what makes the Korean internet unique (it contrasts with the deadpan humour of Reddit in my opinion, for example.) This must also be one of the reasons why the Korean internet slang has such a short lifespan. Many of these slang come from novel expressions from random internet users that caught on, and as there is no shortage of witty internet users, the internet slang keeps evolving at a breakneck speed.

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Listening exercise with transcript #5: A quick lesson in makeup

Here is a short video of a girl named Sulli, who goes through her makeup routine. She speaks in very short sentences, but to me, her speaking seems a lot more natural than what you normally see captured on video. Enjoy!

안녕하세요! 설리입니다. 지금 칸쿤에 와있습니다. 먼저 미스트.

뭘바를까? 이색깔. 짠! 무슨색깔이 어울릴까? 세번째!

복숭아 메이크업이에요. 어떻게 하냐면... 이렇게 하면 뽀뽀치크! 짠!

 During this short segment, she uses two neologism.

First, "복숭아 메이크업" means a makeup that reminds you of a peach. A peach is often white and pinkish red, and it seems popular in Korea to follow this colour scheme when you're doing your makeup. You see this word commonly in Korean beauty articles.

Secondly, she makes up another word "뽀뽀치크." The word "뽀뽀" means a "kiss," usually on the cheek. You use this word when the kiss doesn't have romantic undertone (and often said with a bit of childishness.) For example, if a child kisses her mother, you say:

아기가 엄마한테 뽀뽀했다.

You never say:

아기가 엄마한테 키스했다.

 So Sulli is using a non-romantic word for "kiss," since she kisses her hand to colour her cheeks.

The word "치크" is the Koreanized "cheek." Since she has quite literally kissed her cheeks to get those blush and colours on her cheeks, she is making up a new word "뽀뽀치크," or kissed cheek.

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#29. 관종 -- Craving attention

In English, we call them "attention whores." In real life, these people are willing to do anything to make sure that they are always in the centre of attention: they fake illnesses, and they scream, cry, and storm out in rage when they're not getting the attention they want. Online, they provoke by making outlandish statements, harass other users, and spread falsehoods.

In Korean, the word "attention" can be translated as "관심." The phrase "giving attention" is translated exactly in Korean as well, as "관심을 주다." You can use them in standard sentences such as

학생들에게 관심을 주면 그들은 더 빨리 발전해요 (If you give attention to the students, they improve more quickly.)

There are other phrases that are direct equivalents of English phrases. For example, "Not paying attention" is written in standard formal Korean as "관심을 주지 않다," simply negating the previous sentence. If the action of not paying attention is deliberate, you would probably use the word "ignore" in English, and "무시하다" in Korean.

If you pin down someone as an attention whore, and decide to no longer pay attention, however, you can say this in two ways in Korean. In a more standard Korean, you would say "더이상 (no longer) 관심을 주지 않다," but you can also say "관심을 끄다." This latter phrase is an informal slang that has been around for a long time, which translates as "turn off your attention."

Moving towards the more recent slang, the attention whores of Korea go by several names, all of which are pretty offensive and are only really good for the internet, or for your worst enemies whom you're looking to pick a fight with. You can call them:

• 관심병자, where you compare the attention-seeking behaviour to an "attention (관심) disease (병)." As "자" means a "person," a "관심병자" is a person who is suffering from the malaise of attention.
• 관심종자. A "종자" is a breed of an animal. Instead of just calling people out on their compulsion to seek attention (which is actually a thing; for example, people suffering from histrionic disorder often engage in attention-seeking behaviour,) this word actually groups all of these attention whores together and label them as a breed of an animal. Needless to say, this word is more derogatory than "관심병자," where you're at least treated like a human being!
• 관종. Koreans really like to shorten compound words, and it is often done by taking the first letter of each of the words that form the compound word. In this case, 관심종자 is made up of two words, "관심" and "종자," so take the first letters from each word to get "관종." This has the effect of making the word even more informal, and somehow it is even more degrading since you can't even be bothered to spell out the whole word.

There are many ways to call out a 관종 on the web. You could call them out directly by saying

관종짓 하지 마라. (Don't engage "하지마라" in the behaviour "짓"  that seeks attention "관종".)

You could also insult them indirectly to the other users online about this troll, and say

관종이 또 한 마리 나타났네 (It seems that another attention whore appeared).

Note the use of the counter "마리," which is never used for counting people (it is only for animals!), but since "관종" compares people to animals, using this counter enables you to insult the attention whore further.

Or you could also use a liberal amount of sarcasm, and say

옛다, 관심 (Here you go, some attention for you).

"옛다" is an old Korean word meaning "here you go" or "voilà/tiens," when an older person is giving something (not very valuable) to a younger person as a favour. For example, if your grandfather were giving you a piece of chocolate, he might say "옛다, 초콜렛 먹어라." But if he were giving you a gold necklace, he probably would not say this.

While it is no longer really used in real life, this word signifies that you are doing them a small favour because they really crave your attention. It further signifies that it is not a huge deal for you to turn your attention to them for a little bit. Since they are usually trying pretty hard to grab all the attention that they can, this phrase belittles all of their efforts, and insults them in a slightly different way (by making them realize how childish they are being, and how you're basically indulging them for a moment.) You see these phrases a lot in internet forums, where a lot of trolls are known to appear.

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#28. 호구 -- The giving tree

I have already talked about how the game of Go (바둑) is nationally loved by the Koreans in a previous post. In case you have never tried playing it, the game works as follows. Two players, one playing black stones and the other white stones, take turns placing one stone each on the game board. The object is to surround as much territory on the game board as possible with your stones. When your stones is surrounded completely by your enemy's stones, they are captured by your enemy.

Here, the black stone in the centre is completely surrounded by white stones, so it will be captured and removed.

There are certain basic formations of stones that everyone should recognize. The following is the most basic formation:

As the white player, you never want to place your stone in position A, because then the black player will surely place her next stone in position B and capture your stone in position A. The position A is a dangerous, forbidden territory for the white player. Every 바둑 player is expected to recognize this formation, and as it is so basic and common-sense, it is even given a name. This formation of stones is called a "호구."

The letter "호" comes from the Chinese letter meaning a "tiger." This is the same letter that appears in the Korean word "호랑이" meaning tiger.

The letter "구" comes from the Chinese letter meaning "mouth." For example, "대구 (cod)" is called this in Korean because a cod has a really big mouth, and "대" means "large." "이목구비" literally means "ear, eye, mouth, and nose," or in other words, the components of your face.

Anyway, the above Go formation is called a "호구" or a "tiger's mouth," because the formation looks a bit like the open mouth of a tiger (if you don't see it, think about Pacman.) Placing your stone inside the open mouth is as dangerous as a tiger's mouth, because you will almost surely lose your stone, just like how you would almost surely lose your hand if you placed it inside a tiger's mouth.

But then, there are those people in life. The kind of people who do stupid things, knowing that they will probably lose out by doing these things. But they do it anyway. You probably know some of those people. The dude who does everything that he can for his girlfriend (who treats him terribly) knowing full well that he will one day get dumped (From the girl's point of view, he is the opposing player who keeps putting stone after stone into the 호구, almost like an open wallet.) That girl who always buys people lunch although no one ever reciprocates.

Nowadays, both online and offline (although it probably originated online), we call these people "호구" (to be completely precise, they shouldn't be called "호구" but rather, the opposing player who places their stones inside the 호구, but sometimes meanings get lost in favour of brevity.) So for that dude who can't seem to stop giving to his terrible girlfriend, you might want to say something like:

그 여자는 널 호구취급해. (She treats you like an open wallet.)

To the girl who buys everyone's lunch all the time, you might say:

니가 호구니? 정신차려. (Wake up, you're not the giving tree.)

Of course, there is some distinction to be made between generosity and being taken advantage of. The word "호구" is only used in this latter case.

Furthermore, since the word comes from 바둑, even the elderly should be able to guess its meaning. So you can try out this word to pretty much any Korean, save for a very formal setting (such as writing a report, or when you're meeting the boss of your boss).

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#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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