안녕하세요~ 오랜간만이에요~~ Hi guys! It has been a very long time, but I am back, and I have an entirely new purpose for writing.^^ Each week I am going to introduce a new interesting phrase, slang, idiom, or abbreviation that I hope you will find helpful!

This week, I want to introduce the phrase 쥐가 나다. Know what it means? No, it doesn’t really have anything to do with a mouse, even though that is exactly what it says.. It actually means “to get a cramp.” So, if you are, let’s say, running down the street and get a cramp in your leg, you can say 쥐가 났어요 (polite) or 쥐 났어 (informal).

But, do not get this confused with the verb 저리다 (like I did). That means “to fall asleep” or “to become numb.” So, if you are sitting on your knees for too long (like I often do), and your leg falls asleep (like mine often does), you could say 다리가 저렸어요 (polite) or 다리 저렸어 (informal).

As far as I can tell, you could also use 쥐가 나다 in the second scenario (if you wanted to describe it as a cramp), but you couldn’t use 다리가 저리다 in the first scenario (unless your leg really did fall asleep).

I hope this will be helpful! If there is any particular phrase or idiom you would like to know more about, leave a comment or send me a message. I would be happy to do some research on it.

여러분 쥐가 난 적이 있어요? Did you ever experience 쥐가 나다?

^^