Hi everyone, did you all have a good start of the new year? From reading the signboard, can you guess what this pub is emphasizing? :) If you can, you really understand a lot of Korean! But even if you don't, don't worry because it's an old saying, and it's only a part of the original saying. The saying goes "배보다 배꼽이 크다." which means "Your belly button(navel) is bigger than your stomach." Korean people say this when someone forgets what's really important and ends up making or doing more of something that is extra. For example, when you see someone taking a taxi and paying 100 dollars in order to go shopping to a cheaper mall and save 50 dollars, or when you see someone cooking just for three people and buying the amount of... Show more

Walking around in Korea, among many other interesting shop names, you will see a lot of names that have the letter "존" in it. But even if you look up the dictionary, you wouldn't find just the right meaning for what you see in some of the store or product names, other than the meaning of 'respect' or 'existence', and of course they're not what 존 means in most sign boards. Look at the name of this PC Bang. It says 존앤존 PC방 and in English it's written Zone&Zone. But what does Zone&Zone mean and where does it come from? And look at the beverage below. What does 모메존 mean? What does 모메 mean and what's the meaning of 존 here? Of course you can't find any of those words in the dictionary because this name is also a word... Show more

This is a photo I took in 광주(Gwangju), the city I was born in, when I visited my parents the other day. I always love the humor found in these kinds of signboards and store names because they make it so much easier to remember the names and also show the effort that the store owner(or someone else) must have made to come up with such phrases or names. What you see is , which means nothing in English. But if you pronounce it, it's a different story :D The mathematical sign " =(equal) " is read as "는" in Korean, as in "저는 ㅇㅇㅇ입니다" So if you read it in Korean, it's "티(t)는 아이(i)". And as you can see in the bottom part of the signboard, the name is supposed to mean '튀는 아이'. Of course there's a clear distinction between 티 and 튀... Show more

The OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE's franchise restaurants are also found in Korea, and they are spelled "아웃백 스테이크 하우스" and it's very popular here, especially among young women (or maybe ONLY among young women and some young men who want to impress them.) :-) Having a meal at 아웃백 스테이크 하우스 is quite expensive compared to cheaper and more regular meals, because an average lunch or dinner in Korea would cost about 3,000 won ~ 6,000 won (US$4~7) but a meal at 아웃백 스테이크 하우스 starts from 20,000 won (US$ 23). But the food is good, and the service is excellent, so the high price doesn't stop people from going there. And I saw this funny signboard of a steakhouse near my campus, called 아웃뷁 하우스. 뷁 is not just a funny and wrong spelling of the word 백... Show more

Look at the name written on this signboard of a (probably) fried chicken restaurant (오마이치킨= Oh my chicken) . What do you think this is a parody of? It's obviously not a literal translation of "오, 나의 치킨" or "오, 나의 닭", right? Of course, you would often hear Korean people saying "오 마이 갓!(Oh my God!)" in a joking manner even if they don't really speak English, but looking at this 오마이치킨, I am sure 90% of all Korean people who use the Internet (which is ... almost everybody) would think of the name "오마이뉴스". 오마이뉴스(https://ohmynews.com) is an online newspaper that has the motto "Every Citizen is a Reporter(모든 시민은 기자다)" and it was founded 7 years ago in 2000. It's an interesting form of media because about 20% of all the articles from... Show more