Word play in K-dramas

This is why j love watching variety shows like Workman… i like the ingenuity behind all the word-mixes :joy::sweat_smile: Even though im still a beginner learner, it’s getting easier and easier for me to understand new slang words because i see or hear them so much. I also like that game… the one where they give you two characters and you have to come up with words…
Eg: ㅅㄹ
사람, 사랑…

A new phrase i learned was 어쩔티비… so what(who cares), let’s just watch TV :joy: Suho said the kids would say that every time he asked them to clean their playroom

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To respond to 어쩔티비, you just add any home appliances to 어쩔, such as 어쩔냉장고, 어쩔컴퓨터, 어쩔청소기, etc., or you can just say 저쩔티비.:wink:

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I haven’t seen this on any K-dramas yet but “700” apparently is very popular for texting and in the online community. Anyone care to take a guess? Hint, this actually requires some knowledge of Korean alphabet.

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@choitrio

Is it a slang thing to describe cute/adorable oppas when texting?

This is cute and so much easier bc is numbers.

Google says…
“ㄱㅇㅇ”, which is an abbreviation for “귀여워” (gwi-yeo-wo) .

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Very good. I didn’t realize that Google actually has it. I guess this means it is more widely used than I thought.

귀 = ㄱ+ㅜ+ㅣ
여 = ㅇ+ㅕ
워 = ㅇ+ㅜ+ㅓ

So when you take the first letter of each syllable, they form “ㄱㅇㅇ” which looks like the number “700”.

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So 귀여워요!! What was the one for “i miss you”? It had 보고515 in it or something…

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I think you are thinking about “530” in Chinese which sounds similar to 我想你. Our Chinese friends can perhaps verify it.

There is one more in Korean. “8282” sounds similar to 빨리빨리 which means “quickly” or “hurry”.

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No, it was in Korean…

Ahh found it (glad Baekhyun wrote it so i could do an easy google search XD)
Screenshot_20220321-140633_Chrome

Thats “I miss you”

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Awesome, they should have added that information on Google bc I had no idea why you said we needed to know the Korean alphabet, and you answered my question. Like always, you are #1 when explaining the things with full details. Thank you so much!

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515 => You can read 515 as 오 (5 - oh) 십오 (15 - shib-oh). So if you add 복 (bog) in front of it, it sounds like bog-oh-shib-oh which sounds like 보고싶어 bogoshipeo (I miss you).

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A couple other good ones:

A lot of moving companies in Korea uses the number 2424 (prounounced like Ee Sah Ee Sah) in their phone number as the word 이사 (Ee-sah) means “to move.”

Another number that’s frequently used (such as for a pin number or a passcode) is 1004 which reads like Chun-Sah, which sounds like Angel in Korean (천사).

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I think 복515 is a bit of stretch though, lol.

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Really? I thought of 보고시포~ as soon as I saw it!

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There is also 8949, 팔구사구 (pal-gu-sa-gu), that gets used a lot by businesses for “sell and buy”.

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Yes, there are so many shortcuts. Are Koreans really smart or just super lazy, or maybe a little bit of both! lol

BTW, they use a lot of “acronyms” (초성어) in texting, like ㅇㅈ (인정) and ㄴㄴ (노노), etc.

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Also, I think the younger ones want to feel like they have their own way of communicating. That’s probably why once the adults started using 어쩔티삐, the kids stopped using it.

Here is another one: ㅈㅂㅈㅇ, shortened from 정보좀요 (jeong-bo-jom-yo) for “information, please”.

The newest one for me, I have to say, is when they reinvent a word using provincial dialect. For example, 왜이러냐 (wae-e-reo-nya), the standard way of saying “what’s wrong”, “what’s the matter”, or “why is it like this”, becomes 와이라노 (wah-e-ra-no) in a provincial dialect, hence the new term “Whyrano”.

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It’s hard to keep up with all these “new” slangs and shortcuts and acronyms.

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I know, right? They keep us translators on our toes.:wink:

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Yes, one of the dramas I had worked on, 잉여공주 (Surplus Princess), was laden with all those “new” slangs (which are probably already passé by now), it was really hard for us subbers. Even the title itself was one of those terms, so we had a long discussion about how to translate it into English.

It’s a word play on 인어공주 (In-eo gongjoo - Mermaid Princess), but they used 잉여 (Ing-yeo gongjoo) instead 잉여 literally means “left-over,” and when used in front of “person” (잉여인간), then it means 남아도는 인간, 쓸모있는 인간, 낙오자, 사회에 필요없는 인간. So these are the people who are the “surpluses” and are not essential to the society, i.e. losers and parasites of the society.

It looks like Viki lost license to that drama, as I don’t see it anymore.

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Yes, so many of the show titles and names of MLs and FLs play on words nowadays, lol.

It is because I know how difficult it is to accurately translate from Korean to English that I refrain from ever complaining about the quality of translation. Aside from the few abusers and the ones who overestimate their skills, I truly think that most subbers try their best.

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