Becoming Fluent in Konglish

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This is a filler entry. I actually wrote it a few days ago, and didn't get the chance to finish uploading it until now. At the moment, I'm on my week-long vacation, so I'm not even in Daegu. I thought I'd post it from a PC방 while on the road to let you know I haven't forgotten about you.



I've been teaching these little kiddies for 8 months, now, and I've learned a thing of two about understanding things that would make absolutely no sense to people outside of the "English teacher" community here in SoKo.

• The first thing I guess I'll address is the most popular and most talked-about, erm, thing in the typical Korean elementary student's vocabulary. Fondly referred to as "D-D-O-N-G," ddong (똥) is Korean for, you guessed it, human excrement. No matter how hard I try to get them so at least use English ("poo"), they refuse. SO as some sort of middle-ground, I try and get them to use the word "dung" instead. So far? Hasn't stuck. So much for that.
  
  
• "A head-a-bing-bing." Okay, so this one might take a little more of an explanation than good ol' ddong. Apparently, according to my Korean co-teachers, "bing bing" ("bbing bbing?") means crazy or weird. SO "A head-a-bing-bing" logically means "psychotic." Between this and ddong, my Seed 2 class's stories go something like this: "Okay, so this man is a crazy. His a head-a-bing-bing. He is so crazy he goes to store and eat ddong." And so forth.
  
  
• "Chum chum chum" - literally "..." where "chum" (첨?) means a period or full stop. Pretty much Korean kids use "chum" instead of the English alternative even though they know better, because let's be honest, "period" has three syllables and "full stop" has two. "Chum," on the other hand, is pretty much as succinct as the punctuation it refers to. I usually let kids slide when they use this one in class because I find myself using it... all of the time.
  
  
• 헐 (pronounced "hur" or "hul," depending on where in SoKo you seem to be placed) - This one also means "crazy," but is more of an exclamation or observation than "bing bing." Elementary kids, middle school kids, high school, and college kids alike all use this... all of the time. I use it. Other teachers use it. It's second nature. You see something strange or someone doing something crazy and before you realize what happens... "Hullllllllllllll......"
  
  
• Aigoo (아이고) - Another Korean expression. If you're a KDrama follower, you probably see this one... a good three times every episode. Usually, this comes out as a sigh and is pretty synonomous with "for the love of God," or "what is my life?" (e.g. "KT Teacher, I forgot my Thinking Project paper at home again." "Aigoo, isn't this the fourth time you've forgotten this semester?" OR My response? " Tony. Aigoo. ")
  
  
• ㅋㅋㅋ or ㅎㅎㅎ - You'll see these written pretty much randomly on test papers or interjected "cleverly" into essays. These are essentially the Korean "LOL." ㅋㅋㅋ sounds like "kekeke" and ㅎㅎㅎ is "heh heh heh" or "hee hee hee" depending.
  

Things to look forward to in my next entries: Hongdae, Everland , Gwangju, Mokpo, and more!

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