Monday, April 16, 2007

Think you don't know any Korean?

When I first arrived in S.K, I recall hearing English words float to the surface, in a sea of foreign jabbering. Konglish is English, written in Hangul and spoken with a Korean accent. The term Konglish can also represent the misuse of English in Korea, but that's another subject altogether. Many 20th century objects have been assigned a Konglish title.

Pat yourself on the back, because you just may be familiar with these "Korean" words:

Running shirt / Hand phone / Bus / Diet / Neck tie / Heart (symbolic of love) / Home run / Chance / Hot cake / Coffee / Ice Cream / Balcony.

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:21 PM

    What's a hot cake? Is that a pancake?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous3:23 AM

    ...running shirt?

    ReplyDelete
  3. N- Hotcake is indeed 'pancake'

    Ed Lau- I've heard many Koreans use "running shirt" for tank top.

    ReplyDelete
  4. hi eva!I love your blog! I love kids and I love all things Korean. :) Keep blogging, I'll be faithfully reading it. Hee.

    ReplyDelete
  5. what's wrong with running shirt / Hand phone / Bus / Diet / Neck tie / Heart (symbolic of love) / Home run / Chance / Hot cake / Coffee / Ice Cream / Balcony??

    Haha, if you say those words are incorrect then out of the 12, i'm very familiar with 10 except running shirt and hot cake...

    forgive me but i don't quite understand this post. =p

    ReplyDelete
  6. Colorful World- I was saying that in SOME CASES, the term "Konglish" can be applied to the misuse of English in Korea.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Gosh, i think my English is pretty bad. =p

    The "Konglish" that you've mentioned is quite common here in Malaysia.

    LOL!

    ReplyDelete

thank you and have a nice day