KoreanClass101.com Blog

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( 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 Ohmynews.com are written... Show more

Today, in Seoul, we had the first snow of the year!! It started like a little rain, but then the rain got thicker and turned into heavy snow!! I'm sure all of you have different ideas coming to your mind as you hear the word "snow", but this is what came to my mind when I saw the snow piling up outside my window a few hours ago.

Something really serious happened when I was home for vacation. My friend Josh, who also volunteers at the orphanage told me that some of the older boys were caught with stolen money! Apparently each kid is given 5,000원 (about $5) each month as "allowance." I'm sure it gets spent immediately on 컵라면 and other unhealthy snacks. But sometime during the summer break, a few of the older stole 500,000원 (about $500) from a man in the neighborhood. You might think that they would have tried to hide it really well, but money really burns holes in these kids' pockets. So four kids split the money amongst themselves, the older ones threating the younger ones within an inch of their lives to keep silent. It wasn't long before the staff got... Show more

Well, most of the times, humor is not humorous any more once it has to be 'translated', but I think there can be a justifiable exception - which is, when you are studying a foreign language! It's always good to know more about the culture, and understanding Korean humor can be another fascinating way to help yourself do that! In Seoul, Korea, there's a market place called 동대문, and this is where you can find a lot of 'fake' goods that look like the authentic ones, but really aren't real. But what's funny is, some of the fake goods have 'proudly fake' logos that anyone can see that this is a humor, so a lot of people end up buying those T-shirts, bags, caps, or whatever because they like the humor, even if the quality of the goods isn't... Show more

Hi everyone, this is Hyunwoo. 사람마다 생각하는 방식이 다르죠? 그래서 똑같은 사물이나 일에 대해서도 거기에 관련해서 떠올리게 되는 단어들도 다르고요! So, I've drawn a simple mindmap of what comes to my mind when I hear the word "November" - maybe not everybody from Korea would think of the same things, but I think it will be interesting for all of you to see what's in my mind in relation to this month of the year, and it happens to be all in Korean. Haha. So here you go! All questions welcome!