Everyday Slang & Contractions
Young characters shorten their words a lot. Knowing contractions helps you catch fast dialogue.
Common contractions
| Short form | Full form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ๊ฐ๋ถ์ธ | ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ๋ถ์๊ธฐ ์ธํด์ง | The mood suddenly turned cold |
| ๊น๋ | ๊น์ง ๋๋ | Startled / Shocked |
| ๋จ์น / ์ฌ์น | ๋จ์์น๊ตฌ / ์ฌ์์น๊ตฌ | Boyfriend / Girlfriend |
| ์ฃผ๋ง | (no change, a common topic) | Weekend |
| ์๋ฐ | ์๋ฅด๋ฐ์ดํธ | Part-time job |
๋ ์ด์ ์๋ฐ ๋๋๊ณ ๋จ์น์ด๋ ์ํ ๋ดค์ด.
na eoje alba kkeutnago namchin-irang yeonghwa bwasseo.
Yesterday after my part-time job, I watched a movie with my boyfriend.
๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ๋ถ ๊บผ์ ธ์ ์ง์ง ๊น๋ํ์์!
gapjagi bul kkeojyeoseo jinjja kkamnol-haetjana!
The lights suddenly went out and I was totally startled!
๊ทธ ๋ง ํ๋๊น ๊ฐ๋ถ์ธ ๋์ด. ๋ค๋ค ์กฐ์ฉํด์ก์ด.
geu mal hanikka gapbunssa dwaesseo. dadeul joyonghaejyeosseo.
After he said that, the mood turned cold. Everyone got quiet.
์ด๋ฒ ์ฃผ๋ง์ ๋ญ ํด? ๊ฐ์ด ์นดํ ๊ฐ๋?
ibeon jumare mwo hae? gachi kape gallae?
What are you doing this weekend? Want to go to a cafe together?
๊ทธ๊ฑฐ ์์ ์ธ์ . ๋๋ ๊ทธ๋ ๊ฒ ์๊ฐํ์ด.
geugeo wanjeon injeong. nado geureoke saenggakaesseo.
Totally agree with that. I thought so too. (casual)
์๊น ๋ ๊ทธ ์ฌ๋ ๋ณ๋ก์ผ. ๋น๋ฐ์ด์ผ!
solkka na geu saram byeolloya. bimiriya!
Honestly, I'm not into that person. Keep it a secret! (very casual)
์ด์ ์ํ ๋งํจโฆ ๋ฉ๋ถ ์์ด.
eoje siheom manghamโฆ menbung wasseo.
I bombed yesterday's exam... I had a total meltdown. (casual, slangy)
๊ทธ ๋๋ผ๋ง ๋ต์์ด์ผ. ๊ผญ ๋ด!
geu deurama tting-jagiya. kkok bwa!
That drama is a masterpiece. You have to watch it! (slangy)
Newer slang contractions
| Short form | Full form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ์ธ์ / ใ ใ | ์ธ์ ํ๋ค | Agreed / True that |
| ์๊น(๋ง) | ์์งํ ๊น๋๊ณ ๋งํด์ | To be brutally honest |
| ๋ฉ๋ถ | ๋ฉํ ๋ถ๊ดด | Mental breakdown / Freaking out |
| ๊ฟ์ผ / ๋ ธ์ผ | ๊ฟ + ์ฌ๋ฏธ / no + ์ฌ๋ฏธ | So fun / Not fun at all |
| ๋ต์ | ๋ช ์ (๊ธ์ ๋ณํ) | Masterpiece (a playful spelling) |
How contractions are formed
Most contractions take the first syllable of each word: '๋ฉํ ๋ถ๊ดด โ ๋ฉ๋ถ', '๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ๋ถ์๊ธฐ ์ธํด์ง โ ๊ฐ๋ถ์ธ'. Once you learn the pattern, you can guess new ones with ease.
๐ก Tip: Words like 'solkka' and 'ใ ใ ' are extremely casual and internet-born, so never use them with elders or in formal settings.
๐ก Tip: Slang is for casual use among friends and peers. In formal or work settings, use the full forms.