The Chinese character 愚 (우) means "foolish" or "stupid," and 妻 (처) means "wife," so 우처 (愚妻) literally means "stupid (愚) wife (妻)." The word was used to refer to one's wife in a demeaning way in front of others in an attempt to appear humble (겸사말). I don't know if Korean men still use the word, but I wonder how Korean wives these days would feel if they heard their husbands refer to them as "stupid"?
From Dong-A's Prime Korean-English Dictionary
Another word that was used to refer to one's wife under similar circumstances is 형처 (荊妻), which literally means "thorn (荊) wife (妻)" or "thorny-bush wife." It sounds like 형처 might be similar to an American man referring to his wife as "the old battle-axe."
From Dong-A's Prime Korean-English Dictionary
The following video lists twenty-four 4-character idioms that include the Chinese character 妻 (처), which again means "wife." One of the idioms is 사가망처 (徙家忘妻), which literally means "to move (徙) [one's] home (家) [but] forget (忘) [one's] wife (妻)." The idiom is used to refer to someone who is so forgetful that he even forgets his wife when the family moves to a new residence.
According to Merriam Webster, a "night rider" is "a member of a secret band who ride masked at night doing acts of violence for the purpose of punishing or terrorizing," as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) used to do during Reconstruction in the United States.
The Chinese character 乘 (승) means "to ride," 夜 (야) means "night," and 者 (자) means "a person," so 승야자 (乘夜者) literally means "a riding (乘) the night (夜) person (者)," which can translate as "a person who rides the night" or "night rider."
There is no Korean word 승야자 (乘夜者), as far as I know, but Koreans do use the Sino-Korean word 승야 (乘夜) to mean "under the cover of night" or "under the cover of darkness." Since the pure Korean word for "night" is 밤, and for "to ride" is 타다, 승야 (乘夜) would translate into pure Korean as "밤을 타서." Also, the Korean expression 틈을 타다 literally means "to ride a crack or opening," but translates as "to seize an opportunity."
By the way, the word 승용차 (乘用車) literally means "a riding (乘) use (用) car (車)," which can translate as "a passenger car." And 승용마 (乘用馬) translates as "a horse used for riding," "a riding horse," or "a saddle horse."
Yes, I know. I don't like the translation either, so I'm changing it to 토풍화 (土風火).
Anyway, I like the following video of two young Koreans dancing to 구월 (九月), by 토풍화.
UPDATE: I guess I should have done a little more research. It seems that Koreans also refer to "Earth, Wind, & Fire" as 지풍화 (地風火), which is a good translation, so there is no need for my 토풍화 translation. Just forget it.
ANSWER: Because 대화 by itself already implies 주고받는다. So, it would be better to simply say 대화한다.
The Sino-Korean word 대화 (對話) means "conversation" or "dialog," and 주고받다 is a pure Korean word that means "give and take" or "exchange." You do not "exchange a conversation"; you "have a conversation."
If you want to use the verb 주고받다 to refer to a conversation, then you should use an object noun similar to 의견 (意見), which means "an opinion," "an idea," or "a view." Then, the phrase 의견을 주고받는다 could translate as "exchange ideas or opinions."
Apparently, according to oriental geomancy, the best place in which to be buried is in a place that looks like a woman's vagina, as the following map shows:
From "한자 오디세이"
The Chinese character that was used to represent a woman's vagina is 也 (야). And the Chinese character for "a place where water gathers," or "a pond," is 池 (지), suggesting that a vagina is similar to a pond. The character 氵is an alternate form of 水 (수), which means "water."
ANSWER: Yes, for some of them. So I have redesigned those with 3 or more strokes into 2-stroke characters. But I like the Hangeul vowels the way they are, though I see no need to put the placeholder ㅇ in front of vowels. In other words, why not just write words like 아이, which means "child," as ㅏㅣ?
ANSWER: It depends. If you are talking about the Korean dish 보쌈 or 보쌈김치, then it is good, but if you are talking about the old practice of kidnapping a young man, forcing him to sleep with your daughter, and then killing him to cover up the dirty deed, then it is bad.
The Chinese character 褓 (보) means 포대기, which is the kind of quilt that Korean mothers used to use and still use to carry their young babies around on their backs. 쌈 is the noun form of 싸다, which means "to wrap up" or "to bundle," so 보쌈 literally means "a quilt (보 褓) wrap (쌈)," which was apparently the way they used to transport the young men that were kidnapped.
In the past, if the daughter of an influential Korean family was fated, according to a fortuneteller, to serve two men [in bed], the family might kidnap a young man of no importance, force him to sleep with their daughter, and then kill him to hide the dirty deed. By doing that, the family eliminated one of the two men the daughter was fated to serve [in bed], leaving her available for a more suitable husband. In other words, the family did a 액땜 or 팔자땜, which in this case essentially means the family transferred their daughter's unfortunate fate to the man they killed, though his unfortunate fate was a violent death.
The word 보쌈 was also used to refer to a man kidnapping, in a similar fashion, a widow or a woman he wanted to take as his wife. Many times young widows wanted to be kidnapped instead of having to live alone without a man for the rest of their lives, so the women who were kidnapped might pretend to be asleep or might put up only half-hearted resistance while they were being carried away.
The pure Korean word 업다 means "to carry on one's back," and 모르다 means "to not know," so the Korean idiom 업어 가도 모르다 literally means "to not know one is being carried away on someone's back." It refers to a woman who pretends to be asleep while she is being carried away because she secretly wants to be kidnapped.
Here is the example sentence for the idiom from a book entitled "우리말 숙어 1000가지." The English translation is mine.
점순이가 대문을 열어놓고 업어 가도 모르게 자고 있다.
Jeomsuni leaves the front gate open and is sleeping as if she wouldn't know she was being carried away.
NOTE: 점순이 is the name of the 17-year-old female character in Kim Yu-jeong's (김유정) 1936 short story "Camellia Flower" (동백꽃). An English translation of the story can be read HERE, though I don't really like the translation.
