Dazzled by Korean #02
Dazzled by Korean #02
A journey to let go of one of my favorite expression and an entire sentence in three syllables?
I’m back faster than I expected.
With a topic stuck in my head ever since a friend corrected my Korean over a good ol’ Samgyeopsal (삼겹살) barbecue.
In this edition, I’ll bring you through my journey of rediscovering how language evolves and talk about two other discoveries I did soon after.
Now that’s just awesome
My first time in Korea was back in 2010. I spent two months and a half traveling, volunteering, and, most importantly, enjoying this beautiful country.
When I arrived in Korea, I was between a high beginner and a low intermediate level. I could have conversations but my vocabulary was clearly far behind. During this time, I spent close to a month in Gwangju where I made many friends. This period was probably the time I most improved my Korean.
This was also when I discovered an expression I came to love.
짱이다 jjang ida.
For those who don’t know any Korean, ida (이다) is the verb “to be” in Korean so this expression literally translates to “to be jjang”.
This was used to mean that something was awesome, incredible, great, or such. You get the gist. It’s an expression to express wonder.
I remember using it a lot but I also know now I didn’t use it much after that time due to rarely needing to actually speak the language for the following years.
Wait, what?
Fast forward to a week ago, I was talking to two friends over a barbecue and suddenly said something was jjang.
My friend laughed saying this wasn’t used anymore. Shocked, I asked her when this had stopped being in use. She didn’t know but said “a long time,” maybe 10 years ago.
My mind, on overdrive, went,
How do I remember this expression if no one’s used it for over 10 years?
What the hell do people use then?
Why did it change?
Noooo, but I love this expression!
I asked her what the “new” way to mean this was and, questioned on the spot, she didn’t recall the current equivalent so we left it for the rest of the day…
Or at least, so it seemed for her because my mind just wouldn’t get over it.
I kept asking myself what the new version was. So when I had a call with another Korean friend later that evening, I asked her if what I had been told was the truth and, if yes, what the new version was.
So there’s older too??
My friend laughed and confirmed that 짱이다 hadn’t been used for years. She went on to say there was an even older version: keap ida 캡이다.
Mindblown. 🤯
I later looked up this expression’s origin and absolutely loved it. It turns out 캡 came from the word keaptin 캡틴 which is the Korean for “Captain.” It was heavily used in the 80s and 90s but has seldom been used since 2000.
Anyway.
My friend then told me the new version. A full-fledged verb known as jjeolda 쩔다, often used as jjeonda 쩐다 in the present tense.
You see, as mentioned earlier, the two “older” versions, 캡이다 and 짱이다 have the verb 이다, to be, in common. Using them meant that we were saying that something was jjang or keap.
Jjeolda, on the contrary, is a full-fledged verb people can conjugate on its own. Is this the reason why this expression became more used? I don’t know.
Still, I was curious where this one originated from too so I looked into it. It’s actually an evolution from the verb 절다 which, you guessed it, means “to be seasoned with salt.”
What? You didn’t guess it?
Well, I didn’t either. I even thought I had misread and spent another 15 minutes looking for another potential meaning it could come from but nothing really came up. I guess I’ll have to live with this for the time being.
The only possible explanation to me right now would be that Koreans probably strengthened the letter j to express emphasis—like they often do in other situations too—when they had something too salty and, over time, it became used as a way to talk about extremes and in particular something incredible.
Well, that’s only my grain of salt if you see what I mean.
답정너
Now onto another one of those “let’s contract everything!” habits of Koreans!
Dapjeongneo 답정너 is a contraction of the sentence '답은 정해져있고 너는 답만 하면 돼. which translates to “the answer was already decided. All you need is to reply.”
A contraction of an entire sentence into three syllables! Now if that’s not efficient, I don’t know what is.
One explanation I found from 2014 explains it well and gives a good example:
This word usually refers to a person who asks a question and waits for the response he or she wants to hear. For example, when an extremely skinny girl asks, 'Do I look fat?' We know that she is being a 답정너 because she expects others to say 'No you look skinny.'
Well, the explanation I received from my friend who used it told me the question I had been told was a 답정너 so I think the explanation above should just be changed to “she is asking a 답정너 because…”
Does this matter? No. Is this a great word to get in my arsenal of intricate Korean expressions? Without a doubt 😁
아이고, 대다
Finally, we’re turning to my favorite part of Korean. Its dialects.
You see, most of the people I’m close with in Korea are not from Seoul. Until now, the vast majority was from Gwangju. For this reason, there are expressions from there engrained in me and in particular:
잠 와 jam oa→ This expression literally translates to “sleep comes” and is an expression used in the South to say we’re tired in the sense that we’re starting to fall asleep. The standard version is 졸리다 jollida for the curious.)
알아먹다 alameokda→ I absolutely love this one. In Korean, to say we understand something, the verb 알아듣다 aladeutda is used. Literally, it means “to hear understanding.” Basically, the information enters our ears so we can comprehend it. In Gwangju, they eat that information as they’re using 먹다 meokda, to eat. I’m never getting rid of this one.
Anyway.
I’ve been hanging out a lot with a friend from Ulsan, a town near Busan, so she taught me a common way to say they’re tired in the area there: 아이고, 대다 aigo, deada.
This is the kind of tired after a long day of work, not sleepy-tired.
Aigo is a well-known expression that doesn’t have any translation but is used when we’re doing something “hard” like, you know, getting up from a seat when we’re tired. Here’s more about it if you want.
Deada is the verb for “to put, touch, apply.” The connection? No idea but it’s a common expression and I like it.
Well, there we are. I rambled quite a bit but, as I mentioned at the start, I had tons of mindblown moments so I wanted to share them with you.
I’ve been learning Korean for over 13 years. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
I am, well, dazzled by Korean.
PS: Did I use “well” too much? Well, I’m sorry. I’ll try to reign that in next time around. 아이고, 대다.
For those who know Korean, in this sense, 대다 is used as the equivalent of 피곤하다.