Korean Word Play 말장난

The hardest part of learning a language usually lies in getting its jokes. Especially those that are related to culture or word play. I’m a huge fan of word play, especially in Korean. 😛 Here’s a pretty decent list!

HAHAHHA this list is hilarious!! How many can you understand from the first look? I got only…. 19 D: D: such a fail.

If you are interested in which ones I understand, here’s the list: 4,5,6,8,10,11,13,16,18,20,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,30,31

Read on to see some of the explanations!

hehe I won’t be explaining every single one of them, but if you are reallyyyy curious about why it’s funny, leave me a comment and I’ll explain! (for the ones that I understand only)

4. 너 재수없어! ….. 꼭!한번에 대학 가야 돼

hahaha I really like this one. 재수없다 means unlucky but 재수 alone can mean 再修, which means to repeat one year and retake the college entrance exams. Apparently this is not uncommon in Korea, where high school students who didn’t do well in their first college entrance exams will take a year off and enroll in a hagwon / self study and then take the entrance exams next year in hope of getting to their dream school. I have several friends doing that now and they all say it’s 지옥 같아 (like hell). So if you think of it as 재수 없다 meaning no need to repeat the exams.. then the 2nd part on getting to university at first go makes sense. Get it?? hahahah

31. 절 사랑하세요? …. 전 교회를 사랑합니다

In normal context, 절 is the shortened form of 저를 an the sentence means ‘do you love me?’. But the back part about ‘I love the church’ won’t make sense right? But 절 can also mean temple. xD

Think creative, and you will be able to understand most of the jokes!!

If you are curious about the meaning behind other sentences, let me know! And if you understand something that I’ve missed out, please let me know too!!! 😀 😀

Hope this brought some laughter to your day ^^