Every language has its bizarre words, booby traps, and hilarious translations. I once wanted some french fries and gravy in Quebec and asked for a hooker by mistake (poutine is the food, poutin is a hooker) and came back to my professor’s office in Italy after an oral exam, explaining “I forgot my penis.” (pene is penis, penna is pen). Well, my friend, Korean is no exception.
Hilarious Hangeul
Korean –> English
- 호주 (hoju): Australia; heavy drinking, a heavy drinker (I swear, that’s what my cell phone dictionary says!)
- 동사 (dongsa): a verb; death from the cold
- 개이 (gae-i): gay. 게 (ge): a crab. 개 (gae): a dog (Hence in Korea it’s fair to say that all dogs and crabs are gay.)
- 직장 (chik-jang): a place of work; rectum
- 달이 예뼈 (dal-i ye-ppeo) means “The moon is beautiful.” and sounds the same as 다리 예뼈 (da-li ye-ppeo), which means “You’ve got nice legs.“
English –> Korean
- She follow me (not grammatically flawless, but Korean kids love to say it anyway) breaks down like this phonetically: She follow –> 씨발 (Shi-bal), or fuck; me –> English me or Korean 미, meaning beauty or the USA.
- Shiver –> sounds like 씨발 (Shi-bal), or fuck
- Sultan –> sounds like 수류탄 (su-lyu-tan), or grenade
Korean Language, Korean Living 