ANSWER: "큰 힘을 쓰다," which could be translated as "to use great strength."
By the way, why isn't 용빼다 in the dictionaries I normally use? It isn't in my Dong-A Prime Korean-English Dictionary or my 동아 새國語辭典. It is not even in my giant Si-Sa Elite Korean-English Dictionary (엘리트 韓英大辭典). I thought I had forgotten how to look up words in a dictionary until I finally found the word in a dictionary I hardly ever use.
Finally, in my 국어용례사전 (Korean Sentence Example Dictionary), I found 용빼다 defined as "큰 힘을 쓰다."
There is even a Korean idiom that uses the word: 용빼는 재간이 없다, which I would translate as "to be beyond one's ability to do no matter how hard one tries."
Again, why isn't 용빼다 in my other dictionaries? The first example under the word in my "Korean Sentence Example Dictionary" comes from a book entitled 馬上淚 (마상루), which was published in 1912. So, is the word 용빼다 just too old fashion for modern Korean dictionaries?
ANSWER: Because out of the 133 keywords listed under 병 in my Korean-English dictionary there are only 5 that start with the 병 (甁) that means "bottle" but 60 that start with the 병 (病) that means "sickness" and "disease."
Keywords that start with the 병 (甁) that means "bottle":
병 (甁) bottle [under this keyword is listed 병맥주, which means "bottled beer"]
병마개 (甁--) bottle cap
병목 (甁--) the neck of a bottle
병배 (甁--) a bottle-shaped pear
병술 (甁--) bottled liquor
Here are the keywords that start with the 병 (病) that means "sickness" and "disease." By the way, words that start with the "sickness" and "disease" 병 (病) are pronounced with a long vowel sound, so /벼영/:
병 (病) a sickness; an illness; a disease
병가 (病家) a patient's house
병가 (病暇) sick leave
병객 (病客) a sick person; a patient
병결 (病缺) absence on account of (due to) illness
병고 (病故) an illness, a sickness, a disease
병골 (病骨) a sickly person; a feeble person
병구 (病軀) a sick body; ill health; a sickly constitution
병구완(病救援)하다 to nurse (a sick person). [Note: 병구완 was originally pronounced 병구원.]
병균 (病菌) a germ; a virus
병근 (病根) the cause of a disease
병나다 (病--) 1) to get sick; 2) to be out of order, to break down
병내다 (病--) 1) to make a person sick; 2) to put out of order, to cause a breakdown
병독 (病毒) disease germs; the virus poisons
병동 (病棟) a hospital ward
병들다 (病--) to get sick
병력 (病歷) the case history (of a patient)
병리 (病理) the pathology (of a disease)
병리학 (病理學) pathology
병리 해부학 (病理 解剖學) morbid (pathological) anatomy
병마 (病魔) the demon of ill health; (the curse) of a disease
병막 (病幕) a quarantine station (camp); an isolation hospital
병명 (病名) the name of a disease (malady)
병몰 (病沒) death from sickness = 병사 (病死)
병사 (病死) death from disease; a natural death
병사 (病舍) an infirmary; a hospital
병상 (病床) one's sickbed
병상 (病狀) the condition of a patient
병상병 (病傷兵) the sick and wounded (soldiers); the invalid soldiers
병색 (病色) a sick complexion; a sickly appearance
병석 (病席) a sickbed = 병상 (病床)
병세 (病勢) the condition of a disease (of a patient)
병소 (病巢) a focus (a localized area of a disease)
병소감염 (病巢感染) focal infection
병신 (病身) 1) a deformed person; a cripple; 2) a sickly person; a chronic invalid; 3) a stupid person; a fool; a dunce; 4) an incomplete (a defective) thing; an odd set
병신 구실 (病身 --) unworthiness; uselessness; behavior to be expected of a defective
병점 (病占) [a fortuneteller) predict (foretell, prognosticate) the course of a disease
병주머니 (病--) a person with many (chronic) diseases; a bag of woes
병중 (病中) during one's illness
병증 (病症) the nature of a disease (an illness)
병집 (病--) 1) a weakness; the trouble with (a person); a flaw; 2) the cause of a disease
병주기 (病--) a sickly person; an invalid
병충해 (病蟲害) damages by blight and harmful insects
병태 (病態) the condition (of a patient)
병통 (病--) trouble (with a thing); malfunction; something wrong (with); a hitch
병폐 (病廢) disablement (deformity) by an illness or disease
병폐 (病弊) an evil; a vice; evil practices; abuses
병해 (病害) blight (농작물의)
병환 (病患) [your, his] disease; illness
병후 (病後) convalescence; the convalescent stage
Besides the 5 병 (甁) that mean "bottle" and the 60 병 (病) that means "sickness" and "disease," there are also 40 keywords that start with the 병 (兵) that means "soldier" or "weapon." That means that those three 병s make up 105 of the 133 keywords in my Korean-English dictionary that start with 병. And of remaining words, only one is a pure-Korean word: 병아리 (a chick). The rest start with one of the following 병:
병 (丙) the third; the third of ten Heavenly Stems
병 (竝) together; side by side
병 (倂) merge; combine
Finally, the 병 in all the keywords are pronounced as /벼영/, except for the words that start with the "bottle" 병 (甁), the "soldier" or "weapon" 병 (兵), and the pure-Korean 병 in 병아리.
Also, for fun, 병아리오줌, which literally means "chick urine," translates as either "a chickenhearted person," "a dull conservative person," or "a stick-in-the-mud," but a better translation would probably be "chicken-poop" but with the S-word replacing poop. Chickens do everything from one hole, including laying their eggs.
REMEMBER: I have only listed the 병 keywords that are in my Korean-English dictionary. My Korean dictionary has a few others.
ANSWER: Ten 되s make a 말 (mal). And since ten 홉s make a 되, 100 홉s make a 말. And, by the way, 10 말s make a 섬, which is a big straw sack. So, five 말s of rice is equal to half a sack (섬) of rice.
섬, 말, 되, and 홉 were measurements used in Korea to measure grains. They are all pure-Korean words. Their Chinese character equivalents are 石 (석), 斗 (두), 升 (승), and 合 (합).
The Sino-Korean word 오두미 (五斗米) literally translates as "five (五) mal (斗) of rice (米)" but is used in Korea to mean "a small salary," referring back to a time when Korean government officials were paid in rice and other grains. Five mal of rice is equal to half a sack (섬) of rice. Imagine trying to live off of that for a year.
By the way, when Sino-Korean words start with the character 五 (오), the 오 is pronounced with a long vowel sound, so 오두미 (五斗米), for example, is pronounced as /오오두미/. Here are other Sino-Korean words that start with of 오 (五), which means the 오 is pronounced as /오오/.
오각형 (五角形) a pentagon
오감 (五感) the five senses
오경 (五經) the five classics (of ancient China)
오계 (五戒) the five Buddhist commandments (against murder, theft, adultery, falsehood, and intemperance)
오곡 (五穀) the five grains (rice, millet, beans, wheat, and barnyard millet)
오관 (五官) the five sensory organs
오뉴월 (五六月) May and June of the lunar calendar
오대양 (五大洋) the Five Oceans
오대주 (五大洲) the Five Continents
오륜 (五倫) moral rules to govern the Five Human Relations (of master and servant, of father and son, of husband and wife, of brothers, of friends)
오리 (五里) five ri (Korean miles)
오리무중 (五里霧中) literally means "five (五) ri (里) in a fog (霧中)" but is used to mean "utter bewilderment."
오만 (五萬) literally means "fifty thousand," but is used to mean "innumerable."
오만상 (五萬相) a distorted [frowning, wry, puckered)] face; a grimace; a scowl
오미 (五味) the Five Tastes (of sour, bitter, pungent, sweet, and salty)
오배 (五倍) five times (as many as), fivefold
오복 (五福) the Five Blessings (longevity, wealth, health, love of virtue, peaceful death)
오분 (五分) 1) to divide into five parts, 2) five minutes
오색 (五色) the five cardinal colors (blue, yellow, red, white, black); variegated colors
오색잡놈 (五色雜놈) a reprobate; a rogue; a scamp
오십 (五十) fifty
오언절구 (五言絶句) a quatrain with five Chinese characters in each line
오열 (五列) the Fifth Column; secret agents
오월 (五月) May
오일 (五日) five days; the fifth day of the month
오장 (五腸) the five viscera (of the heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys)
오장육부 (五腸六腑) the five viscera and the six entrails (of gall bladder, stomach, small and large intestines, the paunch, the bladder, and the bowels)
오채 (五彩) the five colors
오체 (五體) the (whole) body; the whole frame; the limbs
오촌 (五寸) one's cousin's son (daughter); one's father's cousin
오층 (五層) five stories (floors, levels); the fifth floor
오행 (五行) the Five Elements (metal, wood, water, fire, earth)
오현금 (五絃琴) a five-stringed musical instrument; a pentachord
ANSWER: "All work," "all things," or "everything."
The 열 in 열 일 is the pure Korean word for "ten," and 일 is the pure Korean word for "work," but the 열 in 열 일 is translated as "all," not as "ten." Why? Because when you count from 1 to 10 on your fingers, 10 is "all" of your fingers. It is similar to saying 만사 (萬事) or 백사 (百事), which literally mean "ten thousand things" and "a hundred things," respectively, but are translated as "all things." By the way, be sure to put a space between the 열 and the 일 when writing "열 일."
The Korean idiom 열 일을 젖혀놓다 can translate as "to put all work aside," implying that one does so in order to focus on something else. The verb 젖히다, which is pronounced as /저치다/, is a little strange since it has four very different meanings in my dictionary, but the meaning used in the idiom here is the fourth one. If you do not like the verb 젖히다, you can substitute the verb 제치다, which seems to be more popular.
Here are some example sentences from Naver's Korean-English dictionary:
그는 내가 어려울 때면 열 일 제쳐 두고 도와 주러오곤 했다. He would drop everything else and come running to help me in my hour of need.
나는 열 일을 제쳐 두고 그를 찾아갔다. I put aside all my work to go see him.
오늘은 열 일을 제쳐 놓고 잠부터 자야겠어요. Today, I am going to sleep before I do anything else.
개밥 means "dog (개) food (밥)," and a 바라기 is "a small porcelain food dish," so 개밥바라기 literally translates as "a small dog-food dish," but Koreans use the phrase to refer to the planet Venus. Why?
Venus can also be called either "the evening star" or "the morning star," depending on when it appears in the sky. In the early evening, it appears in the western sky and can then be called "the evening star." In the early morning, it appears in the eastern sky and can then be called "the morning star."
Koreans use 개밥바라기 to refer to Venus when it appears in the western sky in the early evening, so that suggests that Koreans normally used to feed their dogs in the evening, probably with food scraps collected throughout the day. Besides 개밥바라기, Koreans also refer to "the evening star" as 어둠별 (dark star), 태백성 (太白星), and 장경성 (長庚星).
The word that Koreans use to refer to Venus when it appears in the early morning sky is 샛별, which is probably an abbreviation of 새벽의 별 (morning star) since 샛바람 means "an easterly wind."
Another name for "the morning star" is 계명성 (啓明星), which literally means "opening (啓) bright (明) star (星)," but since "bright star" (明星) is just another name for "morning star," it can literally translate as "opening morning star."
The pure Korean word for "seasickness" is 배멀미, which literally means "boat (배) nausea (멀미)," but the Sino-Korean word is 선훈 (船暈), which literally means "boat (船) dizziness (暈)." Interestingly, at least to me, the Chinese word for "seasickness" is 暈船 (훈선), which literally means "dizzy (暈) boat (船)." The character 暈 (훈) can also mean "halo."
By the way, there are not many Korean words that start with 섣, which is pronounced with a long vowel sound, so /서어ㄷ/.
ANSWER: They can both mean "to feign ignorance" or "to play innocent."
잡다 means "to grasp" or "to take hold of," and 떼다 means "to remove" or "to take off," so 잡아떼다 literally means "to grab [something] and remove [it]." So, why can 잡아떼다 also mean "to feign ignorance" or "to play innocent"? In other words, what is the relationship between "removing something" and "playing innocent"?
ANSWER: 잡아떼다 is just another way of saying 시치미떼다, which literally means "to remove a 시치미." But what is a 시치미?
A 시치미 was an identification tag that Koreans who hunted with falcons used to attach to a tail feather of their falcons. The tag identified the owner of the falcon and where its owner lived in case the falcon ever got lost. Anyone who found the lost falcon could then return it to its owner.
However, apparently some people who found a lost falcon would sometimes remove the 시치미 and keep the falcon. If the real owner later came along and asked the person who found the falcon if the falcon had had an identification tag on it, the person who removed the tag would lie and say, "No."
I have read that although 잡아떼다 and 시치미떼다 both essentially mean "to lie," 잡아떼다 is a more determined lie.
This morning, I noticed a mistake in my Korean-English dictionary, in regard to the Korean words 강권 (强權), which literally means "strong (强) authority (權)," and 강권 (强勸), which literally means "strongly (强) recommend (勸)." So, what is the mistake?
ANSWER: The mistake is that the phrases 강권발동, 강권정치, and 강권주의 should be listed under 강권 (强權), not under 강권 (强勸).
Some may say, "So? What's the problem? 강권 (强權) and 강권 (强勸) are both pronounced the same, so the underlying Chinese characters would not make any difference in conversation. But the problem is that the words are NOT pronounced the same.
강권 (强權) is pronounced /강꿘/, and 강권 (强勸) is pronounced /강권/, so the phrases 강권발동, 강권정치, and 강권주의 should be pronounced /강꿘발똥/, /강꿘정치/, and /강꿘주의/, respectively.
ANSWER: One means to drink one's fill of something while the other means to drink less than one would like.
입 can mean either "mouth" or "lips," and 목 can mean either "throat" or "gullet," so since 축이다 means "to wet" or "to moisten," 입을 축이다 literally means "to wet one's lips or mouth" while 목을 축이다 literally means "to wet one's throat or gullet." That means that one needs to drink more to wet one's throat than to just wet one's lips and mouth. Therefore, 목을 축이다 implies that one drinks one's fill of something while 입을 축이다 implies that one does not drink as much as one would like.
ANSWER:They are the only 객's in the Korean language.
The Chinese character 客 (객) means "a guest," but it can also mean "extra," superfluous," or "uncalled for." And 喀 (객) and 䘔 (객) both mean "to vomit" or "to spit," though the character 䘔 (객) suggests vomiting "blood" (血 혈).
Here are some interesting Korean words with the character 客 in them:
객식구 (客食口) a hanger-on
객설 (客說) or 객소리 (客소리) useless or idle talk
객귀 (客鬼) the ghost of a man who died while staying abroad
객기 (客氣) ill-advised bravery or rashness
객년 (客年) last year
객담 (客談) idle talk
객동 (客冬) last winter
객랍 (客臘) last December
객비 (客費) "wasteful expenses" or "travel expenses"
객사 (客死) to die in a foreign land
객수 (客水) "unwanted rain," "unwanted water," or "water drunk at times other than meal times (extra water?)." By the way, in China (水客 수객) can mean "smuggler," "boatman," "fisherman," or "itinerant trader."
객수 (客愁) homesickness
객월 (客月) last month
객정 (客情) a traveler's lonely feelings
객중 (客中) on one's journey, in transit
객쩍다 (客쩍다) to be uncalled for, be out of place
객추 (客秋) last autumn
객춘 (客春) last spring
객토 (客토) the soil brought from another place (to improve the soil to which it is brought)
객향 (客鄕) a strange land
객회 (客懷) homesickness, nostalgia
And here is one Korean word with the character 喀 (객) in it:
객혈 (喀血) to spit (cough up) blood, a hemorrhage of the lungs
I did not list all of the Korean words with 객 (客) in them, but I think that is enough to show that the 객 sound in any Korean word comes from either the Chinese characters 客, 喀, or 䘔. And that means, as far as I know, that there are no pure Korean words with the sound 객 in them.
After writing this, I feel a little thirsty, so now I think I will drink some 객수 (客水).
ANSWER: Well, in Korea, 馬脚 (마각) means "horse's (馬) leg (脚)," but in China, it means "a horse's foot" or "hoof," though there seems to be some confusion since 脚 (각) can mean both "leg" and "foot" in certain regions of China.
I have read, however, that in Mandarin Chinese, 脚 (각) is usually used to mean "foot" or "feet," such as in 小脚 (소각), which literally means "small (小) feet (脚)," and 大脚 (대각), which literally means "big (大) feet (脚)." In China, the word 小脚 (소각) refers to "bound feet," feet that have been deformed by the old Chinese practice of binding women's feet to make them look smaller. Women with small feet were considered to be more beautiful in ancient China. And the word 大脚 (대각) refers to "naturally formed feet," which apparently were considered to be ugly for a woman.
There seems to be two Chinese words for "foot-binding." One is 裹脚 (과각) and the other is 纏足 (전족) and both of them literally mean "to wrap or package (裹/纏) feet (脚/足)." The Chinese character 足 (족) can also mean "foot" and is the character that Koreans prefer to use for "foot." So, Koreans usually use the Sino-Korean word 전족 (纏足) to refer to "foot-binding."
Anyway, the idiom 마각을 드러내다 literally means "to show or expose horse feet" or "a horse foot" but is used to mean "to reveal one's true character," seemingly in a negative way. So, 마각 (馬脚) can mean either "horse feet" or "one's true character."
I have read that the expression 마각을 드러내다 comes from a story about the wife of the founder of China's Ming Dynasty. Her family name was supposedly 馬 (마), which is also the character used to mean "horse." Ms. Ma supposedly had "big feet" (大脚), meaning that her feet had not been bound and deformed when she was a child. Ms. Ma was ashamed of her unbound feet because only ugly women had unbound feet in ancient China. Therefore, Ms. Ma always tried hide her "big feet," probably by wearing long gowns. However, one day while getting out of a carriage, Ms. Ma's "big feet" were exposed, revealing her secret or "true character" to the public, which supposedly caused people to start referring to "unbound feet" as 馬脚 (마각).
However, the story does not make sense to me. First, why would the founder of the Ming Dynasty marry a woman with "big feet"? Second, feet that have been deformed by binding look more like "horse feet" than feet that are naturally formed. So, I think that Ms. Ma probably had bound feet, not unbound feet, and that on that day she forgot to put on her fancy shoes before getting out of her carriage, thereby exposing her deformed "horse feet" to the public.
ANSWER: Well, according to my Korean-English dictionary it does.
재봉 means "sewing," and 도구통 can translate as "tool kit." So, instead of 재봉도구통 meaning "housewife," wouldn't a better translation be "sewing kit," unless it is also used as some kind of slang expression? Korean does have a lot of crazy slang, but "a housewife" is actually English slang for "a sewing kit."
By the way, why did they translate 여자는 as "She" in the example sentence 여자는 재봉을 잘한다? I would have translated 여자는 as "Women," but if a previous sentence had mentioned a particular woman, then I guess 여자는 could be referring to a particular woman. In other words, "She" could have been used to contrast a particular woman with a particular man, a man who is not good at sewing.
Finally, besides meaning "professor," the word 교수 can also mean "teaching" or "instruction," which is why 재봉 교수 is translated below as "instruction in needlework." Personally, I have never met a "sewing professor."
ANSWER: It literally means "my husband and wife," but . . . .
Today, I was reading my favorite Korean bathroom book when I came across the phrase "우리 부부," which literally means "my husband and wife" but is used by Koreans to mean "my spouse." I am reading this book for the third time, by the way, so I had come across the phrase before, more than 15 years ago, and then wrote about it here in this blog but today did not remember doing it, so I Googled "우리부부" and was reminded of that fact. I guess it still bothers me.
Anyway, HERE is the link to that 15-year-old post. And below are photos of my favorite bathroom book and the page in the book where "우리부부" was mentioned. I have also included a screenshot of my Google search.
In the story below, a grandmother has "dementia" (치매), which apparently causes her to forget when to go to the bathroom, a symptom Koreans describe as "대소변을 가리지 못 하다." The word 대변 means "feces," and the word 소변 means "urine," so 대소변 can translate as "feces and urine" or "urine and feces." The word 가리다 can translate as "to choose," "to select," or "to discriminate," so 대소변을 가리지 못 하다 literally translates as "unable to discriminate urine and feces," which implies that a person does not know when to go to the bathroom. That means that a person with such a problem will go to the bathroom wherever he or she just happens to be.
The girl in the story below, who is about to graduate middle school, talks about how her grandmother gets up in the middle of the night and turns their house into a 쑥대밭, which literally means "mugwort (쑥) and bamboo (대) field (밭)" but implies an overgrown, uncultivated plot of land or, in other words, a wasteland. Except that in this case, the girl seems to be implying that the wasteland in their house is made up of feces and urine.
The girl also talks about how her grandmother these days follows them around the house all day "whining" (칭얼대다) for them to play with her, something the girl does not remember her grandmother doing when the girl was younger. So, the girl starts to think of her grandmother as being "a strange alien being" (낯선 외계인) and wonders what happened to the grandmother she used to know, the one who used to love and take care of her and read her bedtime stories when she was a little girl.
I like this story, and I like the way it is told, though I think the use of the word 외계인 to describe the grandmother is a little immature for a girl who is about to graduate middle school. Use of the word would make more sense if the girl were only about five or six years old. A girl in middle school should be able to understand what dementia is and what it does to people. Nevertheless, this story still brought a tear to my eye.
Koreans apparently used to believe that the more barley you ate the more you farted. They also apparently believed that your farts smelled worse if you ate rice with barley mixed in it. So Korean school kids in the past probably wouldn't have wanted to share a 2-person school desk with a poor kid who ate rice with a lot of barley in it, especially if that kid rarely washed his hair and had body odor that smelled like a "cesspool" (시궁창). In Korea, poor people used to mix barley in with their rice because barley was cheaper than rice.
Now imagine that your teacher makes you and the students in your class change "desk partners" (짝꿍) once every month. Last month the girls got to choose the boy they wanted to sit next to in class, and this month the boys are supposed to choose the girl they want to sit next to. The "barley-farter" (보리방쥐쟁이) in this class is 조수택, who works after class delivering the "evening newspaper" ( 석간신문). Which girl will he choose to sit next to, and how will that girl react?
In the past, when 조수택, who is better known as "보리방구", was assigned a new desk partner, the new partner would always ask the teacher for a different partner, but the teacher always refused until 조수택, sensing that the student didn't want to be his desk partner, asked the teacher himself if he could sit alone in the back because it would help him study better since it would give him more room to hang his bag on his chair and more room to spread out his elbows on his desk.
So, which girl in class will 조수택 choose to sit next to, and how will that girl react? The only hint that I will give you is that there are a lot of sad stories in Korea.
By the way, the adjective 멋쩍다 means "to feel embarrassed, awkward, or uncomfortable," but 멋 by itself can mean "taste," "charm," or "elegance," and "-쩍다" means "to feel" or "to have a feeling," so why does 멋쩍다 mean "to feel embarrassed or awkward" instead of "to feel charming or elegant"? I am not sure, but maybe the word 쩍다 here is a dialectical pronunciation for 적다, which can mean "few" or "little." So, maybe 멋쩍다 literally means 멋이 적다, which could translate as "lacking charm or elegance," and that would imply "awkwardness."
ANSWER:writing paper습자지 (習字紙) literally translates as "practice (習) characters (字) [writing] paper (紙)," which means it was writing paper used in school to practice writing Chinese characters. Apparently, students in Korea back in the 1930s, and probably earlier, were supposed to bring such writing paper with them to school. They were also supposed to pay a monthly tuition fee known as 월사금 (月謝金), which literally translates as "monthly (月) gratuity (謝金)." The Chinese character 謝 (사) means "to thank (someone)."
Anyway, today I read a Korean short story written by Paek Sin-ae (백신애), who most likely wrote it in the 1930s since she died in 1939 at the relatively young age of 31. It is a story of two 12-year-old friends (11 years old in Western age) who had to end their friendship when the father and family of one of them were forced by poverty to move to Manchuria to try to find work. It was a sad parting since both of the friends seemed to know that they would most likely never see or hear from each other again. The friend staying behind feared that his friend going to Manchuria would be killed on the road by 마적 (馬賊), which translates as "bandits on horseback." I was moved by the story, and I will definitely add it to my list of "Favorite Korean Short Stories." The Korean story is posted below:
