When watching Korean dramas, you will often hear terms that are not familiar to your ears. Although you can find out the meaning from the subtitles, the explanation itself is still limited considering that a conversation translated in Korean dramas follows an existing script.
Well, here we have summarized some terms that often appear in Korean dramas and their explanations. Check out the full explanation below!
Chaebol
The first term that often appears in Korean dramas is chaebol. Some of you may already know the meaning, where chaebol means rich family.
Launching from CNET, the word chae-bol translates to “money faction” or “wealth clan”, but chaebol is more than just a company.
In South Korean culture, chaebols are dynasties. The chaebols are responsible for a large part of the South Korean economy. In Korean dramas, there are many characters who are portrayed as coming from chaebol families to present chaebol-themed story plots.
Starting from Reborn Rich, The Penthouse, and others.
Sogaeting
The next term that often appears in Korean dramas is sogaeting. Launching from Stripes Korea, so-gae-ting is a term that means blind dating. This is a fairly common way among Koreans to find friends who could potentially become lovers.
In addition, blind dates are usually arranged by one of the girl’s or boy’s friends to bring them together and introduce them to each other.
Some Korean dramas such as What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim, Business Proposal, and others also feature this blind date scene.
Hwesik
Hwesik or hoesik is a tradition where workers from a company in South Korea will have a team dinner or with other coworkers.
Generally, many companies in South Korea hold hwesik regularly once a month. In Korean dramas, you must be familiar with the scene, right? After work, office employees will visit a restaurant and enjoy dinner together.
It’s not just an ordinary dinner, but hwesik is held with the aim of getting to know coworkers better, as well as building a more intimate and comfortable working relationship. Some Korean dramas that feature this hwesik scene include My Demon, Mask Girl, and many more.
Chimaek
Different from the previous terms, chimaek is a combined term from the word ‘chi’ which means chicken and ‘mek’ from the word mek-ju in Korean which means beer as reported by The Soul of Seoul.
The chicken from the term chimaek is not ordinary chicken, but South Korean fried chicken which is usually served with beer. South Korean fried chicken is also one of the most popular dishes, and consists of various flavors of appetizing spices.
Some Korean dramas feature scenes of consuming chimaek such as Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo, Crash Landing on You, and others.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
