In this article, I will be introducing you to some of the funniest Korean idioms.
As you know, idioms are words or phrases that have figurative meanings that are completely different from the literal meaning of the words.
Some examples of idioms in the U.S. are phrases like raining cats and dogs, out of the blue, dead as a doornail, hold your horses, cool as a cucumber, etc.
Similar to the above-mentioned idioms, there are countless idioms in the Korean language that people use on a regular basis. I have picked out 12 of them that I think you will find very interesting.

1. ๋ค์๋ค ๋จ๋ค
๋ค์๋ค ๋จ๋ค [๋๋ฌ๋ฐ ๋๋ฐ] literally translates as โpick up and put down (repeatedly).โ
Usually, this phrase has to do with the pitter-patter of the heart. Figuratively, it means โplaying with heartstrings,โ or โmaking the heart go pitter-patter.โ
Example:
์ฌ๋์ ์ฐ๋ฆฌ์ ์ฌ์ฅ์ ๋ค์๋ค ๋จ๋ค ํฉ๋๋ค.
Love picks up and puts down our hearts (plays with our heartstrings).
Thereโs a popular K-pop song called โ๋ค์๋ค ๋จ๋คโ made popular by Sunny Hill and Daybreak in 2013. Take a look at the fun music video!
2. ๊นจ๊ฐ ์์์ง๋ค
๊นจ๊ฐ ์์์ง๋ค [๊นจ๊ฐ ์๋ค์ง๋ค] literally translates as โsesame seeds rain down.โ
This phrase usually refers to a romantic coupleโs close relationship that is obvious to the observer. The reference to sesame seeds comes from the harvesting of the seeds. Check out this YouTube link that explains the phrase (dialogue is in Korean). The video also explains the origin of the phrase. This one is a bit tricky to translate, but the closest meaning I can come up with is โobviously in love.โ
Example:
๊ทธ๋ค์ ๊นจ๊ฐ ์์์ง๋ ์ ํผ ๋ถ๋ถ์์.
They are a newlywed couple pouring sesame seeds (obviously in love).
3. ๊ท์ ์ด ๊ณกํ ๋ ธ๋ฆ์ด๋ค
๊ท์ ์ด ๊ณกํ ๋ ธ๋ฆ์ด๋ค [๊ท์๋ ๊ณ ์นผ ๋ ธ๋ฅด์๋ค] literally translates as โa ghost would cry over this,โ meaning that even a ghost will be frustrated enough to cry.
This phrase is used when something unexpected happens that puzzles everyone.
Example:
๋ถ๋ช ํ ์ผ๋ถ ์ ๊น์ง๋ง ํด๋ ๋ฐ๋ก ์ฌ๊ธฐ์ ์์๋๋ฐ ๊ท์ ์ด ๊ณกํ ๋ ธ๋ฆ์ด๋ค์.
It was here just a minute ago, and a ghost would cry over this (Iโm clueless as to what happened).
4. ๋์ฌ๊ฐ ํ๋ฆฌ๋ค
๋์ฌ๊ฐ ํ๋ฆฌ๋ค literally translates as โthe screw becomes loose.โ However, the Korean phrase has a slightly different meaning than the English โloose screw.โ
The English phrase indicates an abnormal mental state, but the phrase in Korean is used when concentration is off and one loses focus. It is a relaxed mental state rather than abnormal.Example:
๊ฐ๊ธฐ ๋ ๋ฌธ์ ๋์ฌ๊ฐ ์ฝ๊ฐ ํ๋ ธ์ด์.
Because of my cold, my screw is a little loose (my focus is a little off).
5. ๋์ ๋ฃ์ด๋ ์ํ์ง ์๋ค
๋์ ๋ฃ์ด๋ ์ํ์ง ์๋ค [๋๋ค ๋์ด๋ ์ํ์ง ์ํ] literally translates as โdoes not hurt even when inserted into the eye.โ
Korean people use this expression to talk about someone they love dearly, such as their children. The phrase is similar to โthe apple of my eyeโ in English.
Example:
์ด ์์ด๋ ๋์ ๋ฃ์ด๋ ์ํ์ง ์์ ๋ธ์ด์์.
This child is my daughter who wouldnโt hurt even if put into my eyes. (This child is my daughter who is precious to me.)
6. ๋ฐ๊ฐ์ง๋ฅผ ๊ธ๋ค
๋ฐ๊ฐ์ง๋ฅผ ๊ธ๋ค [๋ฐ๊ฐ์ง๋ฅผ ๊ธ๋ฐ] literally translates as โto scratch a bowl.โ
This phrase is used to describe the act of nagging someone, especially between a married couple. Specifically, it usually refers to the wife nagging the husband.
Example:
์ง์ ์์ผ๋ฉด ๋ง๋๋ผ๊ฐ ํ๋ฃจ์ข ์ผ ๋ฐ๊ฐ์ง๋ฅผ ๊ธ์ด์.
When I stay home, my wife scratches a bowl (nags me) all day long.
Cultural background:
The traditional Korean ๋ฐ๊ฐ์ง is a bowl made out of a gourd. You can see photos of them in this article on The National Folk Museum of Koreaโs website.
According to an article in Whitepaper, a Korean newspaper, the phrase ๋ฐ๊ฐ์ง๋ฅผ ๊ธ๋ค came from a time in Korean history when cholera was common (before modern sanitation). When someone got infected with cholera, people used to call upon a priestess to perform a ceremony to chase the bad spirits away.
The ceremony involved scratching a ๋ฐ๊ฐ์ง vigorously to make a lot of noise. It was believed that the loud and obnoxious noise would be effective in chasing the disease away.
๋ฐ๊ฐ์ง๋ฅผ ๊ธ๋ค became a phrase to describe obnoxious and annoying noise and, eventually, synonymous with โnagging.โ
Fascinating, donโt you think?
7. ๋ฐ๊ฐ์ง๋ฅผ ์ฐ๋ค / ์์ฐ๋ค
This phrase also has to do with ๋ฐ๊ฐ์ง (bowl made out of a gourd). ์ฐ๋ค means โto wear on the head,โ and ์์ฐ๋ค means โto put on/over someone or something else.โ So the two phrases literally translate as:
๋ฐ๊ฐ์ง๋ฅผ ์ฐ๋ค - to wear a bowl on oneโs head
๋ฐ๊ฐ์ง๋ฅผ ์์ฐ๋ค - to put a bowl over someoneโs head
The figurative meaning of this phrase is to get ripped off or to rip someone off.
Example:
์ฐจ์ ๊ธํ๊ฒ ์ฌ๋๋ผ ๋ฐ๊ฐ์ง๋ฅผ ์ผ์ด์.
I put a bowl over my head (got ripped off) because I was in a hurry to buy a car.
๊ทธ ๊ฐ๊ฒ ์ฃผ์ธ์ด ์๋๋คํํ ๋ฐ๊ฐ์ง๋ฅผ ์์ ์ด์.
The store owner put a bowl over (ripped off) the customers.
8. ํ๋์ด ๋ ธ๋๋ค
ํ๋์ด ๋ ธ๋๋ค [ํ๋๋ฆฌ ๋ ธ๋ผํ] literally translates as โthe sky is yellow.โ
This phrase is used to describe the state of not being able to see clearly because of fatigue or shock.
Example:
๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ํด๊ณ ๋ฅผ ๋นํด์ ํ๋์ด ๋ ธ๋์ง๋ค์.
The sky is turning yellow because I got fired suddenly.
ํ๋ฃจ์ข ์ผ ๊ตถ์๋๋ ํ๋์ด ๋ ธ๋๊ฒ ๋ณด์ฌ์.
I havenโt eaten all day, and the sky looks yellow.
9. ๋นํ๊ธฐ๋ฅผ ํ์ฐ๋ค
๋นํ๊ธฐ๋ฅผ ํ์ฐ๋ค literally translates as โto give someone an airplane ride.โ
The phrase means to over-compliment someone (insincerely). The meaning is very similar to the word โflatter.โ
Example:
์ ๋ฅผ ๋นํ๊ธฐ๋ฅผ ํ์ฐ๋๊ฒ์ ๋ณด๋ ๋ค๋ฅธ ๋ป์ด ์๋๊ฒ ๊ฐ์์.
Giving me a ride on the airplane makes me think thereโs an ulterior motive.
10. ๊น์นซ๊ตญ์ ๋ง์๋ค
๊น์นซ๊ตญ์ ๋ง์๋ค [๊น์น๊พธ๊ธ ๋ง์๋ค] literally translates as โto drink kimchi soup.โ
This phrase is very similar to the English phrase โcounting chickens before they hatch,โ and used when something (good) is assumed prematurely. If you assume you will be getting a gift from someone when that person has not even thought about it, you are โdrinking kimchi soup.โ
Example:
๋ณด๋์ค ๋์จ๋ค๋ ์์๋ ์๋๋ฐ ๊น์น๊ตญ๋ถํฐ ๋ง์์ง ๋ง์ธ์.
There is no news of a bonus, so donโt start drinking the kimchi soup.
Cultural background:
The phrase ๊น์น๊ตญ์ ๋ง์ ๋ค is shortened from the original ๋ก ์ค ์ฌ๋์ ์๊ฐ๋ ์๋๋ฐ ๊น์นซ๊ตญ๋ถํฐ ๋ง์ ๋ค. The original phrase translates as โthe person with the rice cakes is not even thinking about sharing, but you are already drinking kimchi soup.โ
Rice cakes are a common Korean snack made of rice flour. The chewy and sticky rice cakes are sometimes hard to swallow without drinking something with it. Traditionally, kimchi or kimchi soup is thought to go well with snacks like rice cakes and roasted sweet potatoes (another popular snack).
So the original phrase figuratively means that someone is โcounting chickens before they hatch.โ
Eventually, the shorter version ๊น์น๊ตญ์ ๋ง์ ๋ค became just as widely used.
11. ๋ฐ๋๋ง๋ค
๋ฐ๋๋ง๋ค [๋ฐ๋๋ง๋ฐ] literally translates as โto get whipped by the wind.โ
This phrase is used to indicate that one was stood up by someone they were supposed to meet.
Example:
์ ์ฌ ๋จน์ผ๋ฌ ๋๊ฐ๋ค๊ฐ ์น๊ตฌํํ ๋ฐ๋๋ง์์ด์.
I went out to have lunch and got a wind whipping (stood up) by my friend.
12. ํ๊น์น๊ฐ ๋๋ค / ๋ น์ด๊ฐ ๋๋ค
ํ๊น์น๊ฐ ๋๋ค literally translates as โto turn into green onion kimchi.โ
๋ น์ด๊ฐ ๋๋ค literally translates as โto turn into a wilted plant.โ
Both of the above phrases are used when someone is exhausted with no energy to stand up straight. They can be used interchangeably.
Example:
๊ทธ๊ฐ ํ๋ฃจ์ข ์ผ ์ผํ๊ณ ํ๊น์น๊ฐ ๋์ด์ ๋ค์ด์์ด์.
After working all day, he came home like green onion kimchi (exhausted).
์ด๋์ ๋๋ฌด ์ฌํ๊ฒ ํ๋๋ ๋ น์ด๊ฐ ๋์ด์.
I exercised too hard and became like a wilted plant (exhausted).
Conclusion
Idioms in every language are extremely interesting and fun to learn, like the 12 Korean idioms I have shared with you here. Of course, there are countless others that are commonly used. Have you encountered any other idioms that you thought were funny?
Please share any other Korean idioms that you have learned by leaving a comment below!
Donโt forget to check out these articles for more Korean words and phrases:
The 10 Most Beautiful Native Korean Words
30 Useful Korean Transitional Phrases For Essay Writing
์ด์ฌํ ๊ณต๋ถํ์ธ์! ํ์ดํ !!