Friday, May 15, 2009

A lesson in Korean: bbang bbang!

I believe I was watching 미녀들의 수다, a program that features foreign women chatting about everyday life in Korea, when I came across the word 빵빵하다 (bbang bbang hada). I could guess what it meant based on the context and sound, but it was nowhere to be found in the dictionary, so I decided to ask a friend.

He couldn't help but laugh, but after the hilarity (or absurdity?) of my question subsided, he decided this would best be explained using visuals.



What the...?

Can you guess his name?

Um... 빵빵 Bbang Bbang?

No, but close. It's 호빵 맨 (Ho Bbang Man). Doesn't his face look like it's about to explode? So now you can imagine how we'd use this word. 엉덩이가 (butt) 빵빵하다. 가슴이 (chest) 빵빵하다.

Then I recalled CY teaching me a similar phrase (쭉쭉빵빵) months ago... why, I don't recall.

And of course there was Royce's Korean book of everything...

If I were a guy, I'm sure I wouldn't have let this slip my memory so easily! Hmmph.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Haha, I actually ran across 빵빵하다 recently too! It was in an online comic and managed I to find a definition in Nate's dictionary.

Here's a link: http://kordic.nate.com/dicsearch/view.html?i=18793201

Whenever I read it I burst out laughing.