[Note: I didn’t include romanization in this post because 1. I’m really bad at it and 2. this post is targeted at intermediate Korean language learners. Thank you for your understanding 🙂 !]

Lately I’ve been watching more Korean drama series than ever before and while I was doing so, I noticed that some phrases seem to recur quite often. Of course, words like “사랑해” or “가지마” have become an integral part of pretty much every miniseries but apart from those simple (yet catchy) phrases there actually are quite a few other frequently used phrases such as:

정신을 차리다 

I’m sure that if you watch Korean dramas from time to time, you’ve heard this expression at least once. “정신” means “mind”, “mental” and the verb “차리다”, in this context, can be translated as “to collect oneself” or “to concentrate”. Whenever, e.g., the main character gets into a fight and suddenly loses consciousness, their lover will come running to the suffering hero and yell “정신 차려!”. Or when the hardworking student might catch his classmate daydreaming, something like “야! 정신 좀 차려!” will probably come out of his mouth.

설마…

This short word is another commonly used adverb and usually followed by long silence. Why? Because at that moment the actor seems to realize something, or even worse, their imagination is being stimulated to the maximum. “설마” roughly means something like “Impossible!”, “You don’t say so!” and is the perfect word to express surprise about e.g. something that was said right before.

이게 무슨 소리야?

Another phrase to show how startled you are is “이게/그게 무슨 소리야?”. Did someone just say to the main character that they were ugly? Well, this might be their response. If you literally translate this sentence, it becomes “what is this sound”, which, let’s be honest, doesn’t sound quite right. In this case, “소리”, rather than sound, means “remark” and the proper translation would be something like “what do you mean?” or “what did you just say?!”. “뭐라고?” has a similar meaning and can be used in those kinds of situations as well.

깜짝이야!

Speaking of being startled, “깜짝이야” surely is the number 1 phrase when it comes to expressing surprise. “깜짝”, “with a startle” and the verb “이다”, “to be” are combined in this sentence. “깜짝이야” is generally used when someone suddenly appears in front of the actor without them expecting it. Note that both “이게 무슨 소리야?” and “깜짝이야” are informal and can only be used when talking to close friends, people your age or younger than you.

That’s it for part 1, see you in part 2! And for more Korean words, check out my Korean dictionary design collection!

Till next time,

Julie