An Introduction to Korean-English, “Konglish”

Tongue Twisters

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For Koreans born in the US or those who emigrated at a younger age, you know full well what this post is going to touch upon. Even US citizens that never spent any time in Korea, we all have ultra-colored English that incorporates nuanced Korean. Since Koreans have only immigrated to America in large numbers in recent years, my generation (those born in the 80s and 90s) got the full 2nd-gen experience where our parents drilled a great deal of Korean into our heads but because we had little opportunity to use it, it ended up assimilating into our English rather than standing alone as a distinct language.

• Source: The Star

“Konglish” is just that - a hybrid of Korean and English that is an alien tongue to both original Korean users and English speakers. Only Konglish speakers can understand Konglish. Konglish speakers often swap key word in an English phrase with Korean substitutes. For example, Konglish users often add “-ing” to Korean verbs like a “muhguh-ing” where to “muh-guh” means to eat. As you can imagine, this is unintelligible to many except the few in the middle.

• Source: Asia Matters for America

There also isn’t much of an opportunity to talk about such a topic as the implications are a bit lowly. There ‘un-pure’ forms of speech are seen more as isolated and generational flukes rather than a legitimate form of communication. The closest thing I learned that’s similar to this is something like Louisiana French/Creole, a unique mix of colonial French and African dialects, only spoken in particular regions of the state.

But it’s time to come out of the Konglish closet, a contentious remnant of Korean immigrant culture that actually has 2 unique sides to it.

A Unique Generational Symptom

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This type of language use is very specific to the status of the general Korean population in the US. Most Korea immigration occurred during the 80s and 90s with children being born in large amounts at this time. I myself am one of them - a zodiac rabbit born in the late 80s. This was a very unique time for the first wave of open Korean immigrant (compared to the labor-specific transfers of miners and nurses to Germany for example in the mid 1900s) and resulted in the first population of American-grown children.

• Source: Soompi

Since Korean-specific immigration wasn’t developed during this time, we essentially experienced displaced migrants living in fairly homogenous pockets. Immigrants would take on manual labor and basic commercial industries for work, professions that required minimal use of English. Koreans had yet to assimilate educationally and we witnessed was a whole generation of offspring growing up in America - schools, activities, vacationing, etc. - but by the hand of Korean-speakers.

This of course is a very common experience to trends/waves of different immigrants as well - Jewish, Italian, Southeast Asian, South American - that lead to native-speaking outposts around the US. Their nonnegotiable stakes in both linguistic worlds gave rise to hybrid dialects that transformed with each generation, each region, and each time period.

• Source: SEO Clerk

Immigrant education and assimilation is very different now and will continue to change with each contextual change. This is why ‘Konglish’ and other mixtures mutate even every few years as the factors drastically change. Unlike Louisiana Creole for example, which is passed down as a unique regional speech, Konglish is extremely contingent on the contemporary statuses of both cultural worlds.

Key Examples

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But of course we can’t just talk about Konglish without equipping you all with the means to use it. It would be no fun unless you could wield a bit of the special ‘dialect’ with Korean-Americans. Here are a few of the more common phrases -

Let’s eat ‘bahb’. This one’s super simple as “bahb” means both rice and food in general. Throw this phrase in anytime you want to grab a meal with Korean companions.

She or he is my Unni/Nunah or Oppa/Hyung. When referring to older Korean friends or family, we rarely use first names. Instead, we call them by this rubric - guys call older guys ‘hyung’ and older girls ‘nunah’ while girls call older guys ‘oppa’ and girls ‘unni’. Anyone younger is universally ‘dongseng’.

She/He is such a “Mee-Cheen Nyun/Nom”. This is a fairly harsh/vulgar one but one of the most effective way to mask a few words is when speaking not so highly of another person. “Mee-Cheen” means ‘crazy’ and Nyun or Nom is a very derogatory way of referring to a female or male. Very not PC but sometimes those characterizations are needed in life…

To get a flavor of Konglish used in real life, check out an episode or two of K-Town, the LA pseudo-equivalent of Jersey Shore -

Disclaimer - this show and cast of characters is not representative of the typical Korean-American experience. ;)

The Future of Konglish

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As I wrote this post, my wife was actually reading over my shoulder and informing me of other variants of Konglish that are used exclusively in Korea or in a certain way by Korean-Americans. I’ve got the itch to speak upon this more and will make sure to do so in the following few posts.

Let me know what you think! Do you speak a cocktail of you parents’ mother tongue and that of your current residence?