Just like any other country, Korea has its own set of trendy slang words that are useful to know when you travel to Korea or youโre just watching a Korean show.
Koreaโs slang mainly consists of bigger words contracted together much like English slang. A lot of recent Korean slang also comes from English slang so you might notice some similarities.
Korean exclamations
1. ๋๋ฐ โ (Daebak)
Meaning: Thatโs awesome!
Stars in Korean dramas and variety shows use this word frequently. It describes when something is awesome or it’s a way of showing enthusiasm. A lot of the time it also describes a state of awe or shock.
2. ์งฑ โ (Jjang)
Meaning: Great or Amazing!
This is another way to say something is amazing or awesome in Korean. However, you can add this to describe a certain personโs feature such as ์ผ์งฑ (eoljjang), which means good looking or ๋ชธ์งฑ (momjjang), which means having a good body.
3. ํ โ (Hul)
Meaning: Oh My God!
This word expresses shock. Mainly something negative as opposed to daebak but it can be used both ways.
4. ์ผ โ (Jaem)
Meaning: Fun
This is the shortened version of the word ์ฌ๋ฏธ (jae-mi, fun). This describes whether something or someone is fun or not. The word is used in two different ways. One way is to express great fun by saying ๊ฟ์ผ (ggool jaem, literally honey fun) or you can express something is no fun at all by saying ๋ ธ์ผ (no jaem, no from English plus jaem).
5. ์ฝ – (kol)
Meaning: Iโm in or sounds good.
This is used when you’re either down to go to the movies or about to do something reckless. Itโs that nonchalant expression that could be used to express that youโre committing to a fun social activity or youโre willing to go cliff jumping.
6. ํ์ดํ – (hwaiting)
Meaning: Iโm rooting for you!
This has been used countless times in Korean slang history. Used in sporting events or to encourage someone you care about.
Korean relationships & romance
1. ๋จ์น / ์ฌ์น – (namchin / yeochin)
Meaning: boyfriend/girlfriend
This is a shortened way of saying ๋จ์ ์น๊ตฌ (nam-ja chin-goo) and ์ฌ์ ์น๊ตฌ (yeo-ja chin-goo). This is similar to shortening boyfriend and girlfriend in English using gf and bf.
2. ์ธ – (ssum)
Meaning: Developing feelings between two people.
This describes a time between two people right before they officially start dating. Basically saying there is SOMEthing going on between them. It’s verb form is ์ธํ๋ค (sseomtada) or ์ธ์ ํ๋ค (sseomeul tada). To describe the other person that is showing interest, you can use ์ธ๋จ (sseomnam) for men, and ์ธ๋ (sseomnyeo) for women.
3. ๋ฐ๋น – (mildang)
Meaning: Push and pull
Literally putting the first syllables of push and pull together, ๋ฐ๋ค (mil-da, to push) and ๋น๊ธฐ๋ค (danggi-da, to pull). This describes someone in a romantic situation who is being flaky or โplaying games”.
4. ์ ๊ต – (aegyo)
Meaning: Acting cuteย
This describes when someone is acting cute or baby-like. Used mainly among idols to display fan service but itโs also seen as a way of flirting.
Bonus slang!
1. ๋ปฅ โ (Ppung)
Meaning: Joke/lie
This word is commonly describes a joke or false information. It’s normally used like this: ๋ปฅ์น์ง๋ง (Ppung-chi-ji-ma, “Donโt lie to me” or “Stop joking with me”).
2. ์ ์นด – (selka)ย
Meaning: Selfie
This is the shortened version of the two words ์ ํ (selpeu, self) and ์นด๋ฉ๋ผ (kamera, camera). You can call selfie sticks ์ ์นด๋ด (selkabong) in Korean.
3. ๋ฒ ํ – (bepeu)
Meaning: Best friend
This is the shortened version of the Konglish (Korean English) phrase ๋ฒ ์คํธ ํ๋ ๋ (beseuteu peurendeu, best friend).
4. ๋ด๊ฐ ์ ๊ฒ – (naega ssolge)
Meaning: Iโll pay/treat
Literally meaning “I’ll shoot”, these are words everyone wants to hear after a large meal. This is used to say that you will be the one paying as it is a common tradition in Korea that each person in the group takes turns paying for meals. The verb ์๋ค (So-da) actually means to shoot rather than using the verb ์ฌ๋ค (sa-da, to buy).
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