Category: 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

I’ve decided to do a series of Korean tongue-twisters, in the same way I have been doing aphorisms and proverbs.

고려고 교복은 고급교복이고 고려고 교복은 고급원단을 사용했다.

고려고       교복은         고급교복이고
go·ryeo·go  gyo·bok·eun   go·geup·gyo·bok·i·go
Goryeo-High uniform-TOPIC high-quality-uniform-be-CONJ
고려고       교복은         고급원단을
go·ryeo·go  gyo·bok·eun   go·geup·won·dan·eul
Goryeo-High uniform-TOPIC high-quality-fabric-OBJ
사용했다
sa·yong·haett·da
use-PAST

The Koryo High School uniform is of high quality and the Koryo High School uniform is made of high quality fabric.

The only word that gave me a problem here was 원단. I’d already heard from a Korean tutor that the word means fabric, but my efforts to confirm that with a Korean-English dictionary failed – none that I consulted online include “fabric” as a meaning for 원단. But the meaning is right there in the Korean-Korean dictionary: 원단 (原緞) -옷 따위를 만드는 데 원료가 되는 천 (which translates roughly as a good definition for fabric). The hanja are different for this 원단 than the ones found in the Korean-English dictionary, too. Sometimes I think that mostly what I’m learning with all my efforts at study is not the Korean Language, but instead the shortcomings of Korean-English dictionaries.
I decided not to research what the actual Goryeo High School uniform looks like. I only found one Goryeo High School in Korea, which is located in the city of Gwangju. I may have even walked past it at some point during my perambulations in that city when living down in Yeonggwang in 2010~11, since Gwangju was the closest major city. I was surprised that there is only one high school with the name Goryeo, since there is a very famous university called Goryeo, and since the name “Goryeo” itself is one of the many names for the country called “Korea” or “Corea” in western languages, arguably one of the oldest names, and undoubtedly the name from which the western name for the country derives.
Anyway, I hope they have nice uniforms at that high school, made with high quality fabric.

I’ve decided to do a series of Korean tongue-twisters, in the same way I have been doing aphorisms and proverbs.
앞뜰에          있는         말뚝이
ap·tteul·e     itt·neun    mal·ttuk·i
front-yard-LOC be-PRESPART hitchingpost-SUBJ
말맬                  말뚝이냐
mal·mael             mal·ttuk·i·nya
horse-tether-FUTPART hitchingpost-be-OPT
말안맬                    말뚝이냐 ?
mal·an·mael·             mal·ttuk·i·nya
horse-not-tether-FUTPART hitchingpost-be-OPT

Is it [the horse?] tethered to the front yard hitching post or not?

I could see this conversation taking place in one of those popular Korean historical television dramas. Scene: the one guy runs into the palace, and the other guy asks, “Did you come on a horse?” and the other guy says “Yes my lord,” and then the first guy asks, “Is the horse tethered to the front yard hitching post or not?” – maybe because they need to plan an escape.

I’ve decided to do a series of Korean tongue-twisters, in the same way I have been doing aphorisms and proverbs.

칠월칠일은            평창친구 

chil·wol·chil·il·eun pyeong·chang·chin·gu      

7-month-7-day-TOPIC  Pyeongchang[a city]-friend
친정       칠순           잔칫날
chin·jeong chil·sun      jan·chit·nal
mom’s-home 70th-birthday banquet-day
July 7th [is my] friend from Pyeongchang’s mom’s 70th birthday party.

I’m not sure if ~친구 친정 here ends up meaning “friend’s mom’s” or “friend’s (at her mom’s house).” Or maybe it could even mean something like “friend’s mother-in-law”? The phrase is too sparse on those optional grammatical particles I like to lean on.

Pyeongchang is where the 2018 Winter Olympics are scheduled to take place.

I’ve decided to do a series of Korean tongue-twisters, in the same way I have been doing aphorisms and proverbs. This first one is one I mentioned before – in 2007.
내가    그린    기린     그림은       
Naega  geurin  girin   geurimeun    
I-SUBJ draw-PP giraffe drawing-TOPIC
잘    그린    기린     그림이고,
chal geurin  girin   geurim-igo,
well draw-PP giraffe drawing-be-CONJ
니가      그린    기린     그림은       
niga     geurin  girin   geurimeun    
you-SUBJ draw-PP giraffe drawing-TOPIC
잘   못그린         기린     그림이다.
chal motgeurin     girin   geurim-ida.
well can’t-draw-PP giraffe drawing-be
The giraffe drawing that I drew is a well-drawn giraffe drawing, but the giraffe drawing that you drew is a not-well-drawn giraffe drawing.
I remember that 그린 [geurin] caused me some confusion, way back when, because the stupid online Korean-English dictionary says it can mean “green” (i.e. that it’s a Konglish term), but that’s not really what’s going on. It is, instead, a past participle (or relativized form, “~ that ~ V-ed”) of the verb 그리다 [geurida = draw].
It’s frustrating to think that I have been studying Korean for 5 years since then, and I’m still so very bad at it, that I can’t say this tongue-twister much better now than I could then. Sigh.

기둥을    치면      들보가          울린다
post-OBJ hit-WHEN crossbeam-SUBJ ring-PRES
When you hit the post, the crossbeam rings.

This refers to the post and crossbeam of an old-style house (한옥 = traditional “Korean house”). I visualize that by hitting the post you could get a sort of tone from the crossbeam, in a well-constructed house. It seems to mean that you can achieve a better result by going at something indirectly. Don’t tackle problems head-on.
I would do well to take this advice.

한달이 크면 한달이 작다
one-month-SUBJ be-big-IF one-month-SUBJ be-small
If one month is long then another is small.

Life has its ups and downs.

Here (at right) is a meme-picture I found in onlineland.

I imagine a door labelled “happiness” where this is true – that it isn’t locked. But I also imagine they keep changing the (very ostentatious) locks that are on it, such that you repeatedly leap to the conclusion that the door might be locked, even though it’s not. It ends up all being just a sort of epistemological security theater. You have to keep reaching out and trying the door, and sometimes you tire of playing the weird game involved.

무는           말    있는데      차는          말    있다
bite-PRESPART horse have-CONN kick-PRESPART horse have
[Where] there’s a biting horse there is a kicking horse.

“Birds of a feather flock  together.” It means that bad person associates with other bad people.
Once again, the googletranslate version (as of today) is hilarious:

Biting the end of the car, which is the end.

I want to write a novel with this as the title.

The picture at right isn’t meant to encapsulate this proverb – it’s merely a strange horse-person image I found in an online image search.

모기 보고 칼 뺀다
mosquito see-AND sword draw-PRES
See a mosquito and draw a sword.
This means to get angry at nothing important

I like googletranslate’s version, though: “Subtract mosquito looking knife.”

In the comic frame below, the phrase at left is a slightly more grammaticalized version of the same proverb (remember, grammatical particles in Korean are often optional), while at the right the character is saying 아까운 내 피를… 넌 죽었다! [my precious blood… you’re dead!].

한  가랑이에       두  다리를    넣는다
one pant-leg-LOC two leg-OBJ put-PRES
[Someone] is putting two legs in one pant-leg.

This might be the slapstick of proverbs. Or the comic relief. I guess the idea is that a person gets nervous and tries to put on pants and fails, putting two legs into one pant-leg. It’s a bit like Laurel and Hardy… or the picture at right.
The word 가랑이 means “crotch” or “inseam” in the dictionary, but I could see it being extended to the idea of the pant-leg. I could never understand why in English, a pant-leg couldn’t simply be called a “pant.”

하늘이       돈잎만     하다
heaven-SUBJ coin-ONLY do
Heaven is only a coin.
This is about the gloomy person who can’t see how wide or beautiful the world is. I am that person, sometimes. I suppose a slight variant of this in English would the description of someone having “tunnel vision.” The sky narrows down to just a circle – a coin.
I had trouble with the word 돈잎 [don-ip] – it doesn’t appear in any dictionary, although I could guess the meaning (from 돈 meaning money and 잎 meaning leaf, hence “leaf of money” i.e. “coin”).
I messed around with the online dictionary for a while, and finally found a variant spelling 돈닢 [don-nip] (which is a logical alternate spelling if you know the weird spelling rules developed for syllables starting with vowels as a result of historical changes in the pronunciation of words). But even then, 돈닢 only appears in the Korean-Korean dictionary, not in the Korean-English dictionary. I think the quality of Korean-English dictionaries is very poor, online or off.

사 자 성 어
sa.ja.seong.eo
four-character-constitute-word

This idiom is an example of itself. This is what I’d been looking for – I was hoping there was a name for these four-syllable Chinese-origin aphorisms and proverbs that I sometimes run across and have made efforts to understand.

I found it. Here’s the definition in the online Korean-Korean dictionary: “네 개의 한자로 이루어져 관용적으로 쓰이는 글귀.” The googletranslate actually does a pretty good job with this (for a radical change from the norm): “Composed of four Chinese characters used in idiomatic saying.”

It works the same way as the English “TLA” – which means “Three Letter Acronym” but is also an example of a three-letter acronym. In other words, “성어사자” is a four-character idiom.

Here is another picture from last weekend – a view inside the main throne-room at Gyeongbok Palace.

고슴도치도     제   새끼는     함함하다고  한다

hedgehog-TOO self pup-SUBJ sleek-QUOT do-PRES

A hedgehog says its own pups are sleek.

“Everyone thinks their own children are beautiful.” I found this cool 속담 (aphorism) “smart comic textbook” (똑똑한 만화 교과서) which gives a slight variant: 고슴도치도 제 새끼는 예쁘다고 한다 (the word “pretty” substituted for “sleek” – the latter is a reference to the hedgehog’s fur I suppose).



The comic gives as equivalent the English proverb “The crow thinks her own bird fairest” which I’ve never heard in my life, but I can get the sense of it.

This is one of the dedicated teacher’s chief dilemmas: dealing with parents who think their children are something other than what they are. As a foreign teacher with very bad ability to communicate in Korean, I am somewhat sheltered or shielded from this issue in my day-to-day work. I don’t envy my fellow teachers who must deal with parents every day, and I have mostly unpleasant recollections of my dealings with parents when teaching in the US many years ago.

I have speculated that I simply couldn’t do this job if I had to deal more directly with the parents – that the positives would no longer outweigh the negatives.

In that light, I should feel grateful I can’t speak Korean well, because if I did, I would hate my job.

똥인지           된장인지          분간할               수   없다
shit-be-WHETHER miso-be-WHETHER distinguish-FUTPART able not-have
[He] can’t distinguish whether it’s shit or soybean paste [=miso].

“He can’t tell shit from shinola” or “Wouldn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground” might be similar in tone and meaning.
In the picture at right, the shit is asked: “You… are you shit?” “Are you miso?” The shit answers, “Turns out~ Shit~”

잘나도           내  낭군,         못나도       내  낭군
is-handsome-TOO my dear-husband, is-ugly-TOO my dear-husband
My dear husband is both handsome and ugly.
So, the one place where I found this phrase or proverb translated (interpreted) to English (actually he only interprets the truncated second clause but I suspect it’s familiar enough that the first clause is then understood) seems to think it’s equivalent to Churchill’s “Democracy is the worst form of government except those others that have been tried.” That commenter also suggests “Every human being is defective.”

I think those are very broad interpretations – too much poetic license being taken. But I can’t be sure…


I found another spot where some blogger blogging in Korean seemed to implying a political context for it, too – but my Korean is too lousy to really guess what that’s about. What I did understand is that a substitution is suggested, replacing “내 낭군” [my dear husband] with “우리 대통령” [our president], hence “잘나도 우리 대통령, 못나도 우리 대통령” [Our president is both handsome and ugly] (meant metaphorically maybe – but see picture of former president, at right).

I think maybe a better phrase might be something short and more personal: “I like him/her/it, warts and all.” Just that we accept the good with the bad in any given situation. Since I haven’t been able to find the source context for this line, I’m really just speculating. My intuition is that it doesn’t feel like an “old proverb” so much as a recent phrase that was popularized in some novel or TV show or suchlike.

닭의         모가지를  비틀어도        새벽은      온다
chicken-GEN neck-OBJ twist-CONCESS dawn-TOPIC come
Even if you wring the rooster’s neck dawn still comes.

Killing the bearer of bad news doesn’t change the bad news. Perhaps “Don’t kill the messenger” is something equivalent. More seriously, this might be an admonition against magical thinking.

양    자     택     일
both-people-choose-one
Selection between two choices
For this proverb, “Have your cake and eat it too,” is the meaning suggested on one site. But I think it’s more simple than that – it’s saying you have to make a choice – it doesn’t seem to carry as much baggage as the English version about cake with respect to the type of choice to be made.
Like some others I’ve chosen, this is one of those Chinesisms (Sinisms?). It’s not so much a proverb as it is simply some Chinese that’s fossilized in toto into the Korean language. Like some of the others, too, it can be verbified, just like so many noun-phrases in Korean: 양자택일하다 [yang-ja-taek-il-ha-da = to make a selection between two choices].
There seems to be a special category for these specifically four-syllable Sinisms – I hesitate to think of them as proverbs at this point, and I learn more Korean in studying the hanja dictionary trying to figure out the meaning than I learn from the phrase itself. The definition for this phrase was, “둘 중에서 하나를 고름, 둘 중에서 하나를 택하다.”
둘   중에서       하나를   고름,
two between-LOC one-OBJ equal-GER
둘   중에서       하나를   택하다.
two between-LOC one-OFJ choose
Two things being equal, choose one.
 

목구멍이      포도청이다
throat-SUBJ police-bureau-IS
The throat is the police.
I guess 포도청 (捕盜廳) was a name for the police bureau in Joseon times. So one is saying that the throat (gullet, i.e. appetite?) is the police bureau. I can see how this could lead to a translation as “Desperation recognizes no law” and even “The devil dances in an empty pocket.” The law of hunger overrides other laws.

Another one of those Chinese proverbs, read in Korean:

동    상    이         몽
same table different dream
This was provided with the translation “Different dreams in the same bed.” But 상 (床) seems to mean “table,” not “bed” based on my looking at a hanja dictionary. Other than that, it sort of makes sense, despite being Chinese, not Korean.
The meaning would be, “People are never alike in their minds.” Should we therefore be wary even of those we trust, perhaps?

기대가             크면      실망도               크다
expectation-SUBJ be-big-IF disappointment-TOO be-big
If expectation is big then disappointment is big.

“Big hopes lead to big disappointments.” This was easier than most of the proverbs I’ve attempted lately. The grammar was pretty straightforward and the vocabulary was basic.

I can relate to this proverb.