I’m going to a concert (Groovl1n) and we got VIP tickets, so it involves a Hi-touch. My friend is helping me practice my verbal/auditory Korean skills and gave me a … sort of joke that I should tell the artist when I meet him.
너 얼굴에 김 붙었어
Ok sooooo this is a joke that also kind of works as a pass, because it means that someone is handsome.
Breakdown:
너
This is just the informal ‘you’ without any topic markers.
얼굴에
얼굴 just means ‘face’.
에 is a location marker, added to the place where something is located.
So this together means ‘on ___ face’. Can be your face, their face, the face, etc.
김
Seaweed!
붙었어
This is the past tense informal conjugation of 붙다, which means ‘to be stuck (on)’.
So literally this all means ‘You have seaweed on your face’
Explanation:
Sooooo … why is it a compliment?
잘생기다 = To be handsome
잘생김 = handsomeness (essentially)
Adding -ㅁ to the end of the word turns it into a kind of noun.
And the reason that this is a joke is because of the 김; it means seaweed but is also part of the word 잘생김. It’s just wordplay.
Evidently it goes along the lines of:
“너 얼굴에 김 붙었어”
“무슨 김?”
“잘생김”
That’s all ~
Satyanghae Korean 