Naver Dictionary shared their year end search query roundup in a post highlighting some of the trending vocabulary lookups.
Naver Dictionary is a very valuable resource for anybody studying or using Korean, as it gives great examples of word use for various meanings and even the corresponding hanja which personally I find really helps draw connections between words and helps you distinguish your 미역국 국 from your 미국 국.
Anyway here are some of the results I found interesting.
These may seem like easy words to you and me, but notice that they can have multiple meanings depending on context. I'm guessing people are looking these up to verify or learn about these possible meanings.
Consider: "I appreciate your help" (thank you) vs "I would appreciate it if you..." (please do this) vs "the company's stock portfolio appreciated" (rise in value).
Naver has an "open dictionary" that users can edit and submit to, which often is a good way to find the meanings of all the slang and new words that English generates so quickly and haven't gone through the process of being incorporated by one of Naver's corporate dictionary partners. It's a bit like Urban Dictionary though usually less vulgar, most of the time.
인증샷, literally "proof / verification shot" is used much more often in Korean I think than English. You can guess the meaning: on the internet, where talk is cheap, people often want a 인증샷 to prove that you're not just trolling but that you really are who you say you are or did what you say you did. On Reddit this would be like "verification" when people do an AMA. It's also popular on Instagram (see here and here). On Korean forums it seems to me (based on the type of sites I visit) that an 인증샷 is usually a photo of your workplace ID, with your name blurred out, and some kind of handwritten timestamp.
Of course another famous example is probably the Ilbe gesture (which is basically the same as the OK hand gesture) being shown in pictures, used to signal that the poster is a true Ilbe bug. Talking about this gesture could be an entire post all by itself. I've read conflicting information about the origins of the gesture: that the circle is the ㅇ and the fingers are ㅂ of Ilbe (일베), or that it comes from a gesture former president Roh Moo-hyun made while saying "이기야" during a speech and so this is now the name of the gesture itself? Who knows. Supposedly ultra-feminist group Megalia even mirrored it to represent a hand demonstrating Korean men's small penises. It's pretty amazing really that in many ways, despite this gesture existing abroad too and having it's own controversial history there (see the whole 4chan troll / white power thing), the gesture has its own unique controversial yet completely different history in Korea.
XOXO is of course the symbols for hugs and kisses, though I'm not sure why it was so "new" considering very popular K-pop group EXO used it as an album title back in 2013.
WYD is just "what you doing?". I'm guessing a lot of these older English short chatslang words are getting popular as more and more young Koreans are using those "meet foreign friends" apps. Recall that these types of apps were massively popular this year.
Why these words? I have no idea about 2~5 but the word "squid" was #1 because of a scene in the popular TV program.
In an episode of "I Live Alone" the stars were in a hotel in Hong Kong and wanted to order dried squid jerky from room service, but debated about how to ask for it in English. Comic actor Lee Si-eon (이시언) suggested just asking for "dry triangle" since squid look like triangles. This led apparently to an influx of searches for exactly how to say 오징어 in English. Of course to be fair Koreans tend to have differentiated words between a few similar sea animals that I would just lump together as "squid." Same for "octopus." Call me a landlubber but anything with a round head and legs is octopus and long head with legs is squid. I don't make distinctions beyond that. Korean absolutely does.
You can see more word search results like this at their Naver blog post, including popular words based on age breakdowns:
🔗 https://blog.naver.com/dic_master/221748210171
They even have an Excel file you can download that contains an ordered list of top 10,000 words! Word #10,000 is "stinky" by the way. Small warning: a very small percentage of the words people searched are risque.
Apparently Naver Dictionary has released this list for a few years now, so you can also see previous years in the Related Posts section at the bottom of their post.
Naver Dictionary is a very valuable resource for anybody studying or using Korean, as it gives great examples of word use for various meanings and even the corresponding hanja which personally I find really helps draw connections between words and helps you distinguish your 미역국 국 from your 미국 국.
Anyway here are some of the results I found interesting.
 |
| Naver Dictionary's top 2019 popular words |
Top 10 English words searched in 2019 on Naver Dictionary
- appreciate
- address
- through
- as
- feature
- practice
- concern
- available
- subject
- certain
These may seem like easy words to you and me, but notice that they can have multiple meanings depending on context. I'm guessing people are looking these up to verify or learn about these possible meanings.
Consider: "I appreciate your help" (thank you) vs "I would appreciate it if you..." (please do this) vs "the company's stock portfolio appreciated" (rise in value).
Top 5 new words in Naver Open Dictionary in 2019
Naver has an "open dictionary" that users can edit and submit to, which often is a good way to find the meanings of all the slang and new words that English generates so quickly and haven't gone through the process of being incorporated by one of Naver's corporate dictionary partners. It's a bit like Urban Dictionary though usually less vulgar, most of the time.
- Girl crush
- 인증샷
- plant based
- XOXO
- wyd
인증샷, literally "proof / verification shot" is used much more often in Korean I think than English. You can guess the meaning: on the internet, where talk is cheap, people often want a 인증샷 to prove that you're not just trolling but that you really are who you say you are or did what you say you did. On Reddit this would be like "verification" when people do an AMA. It's also popular on Instagram (see here and here). On Korean forums it seems to me (based on the type of sites I visit) that an 인증샷 is usually a photo of your workplace ID, with your name blurred out, and some kind of handwritten timestamp.
Of course another famous example is probably the Ilbe gesture (which is basically the same as the OK hand gesture) being shown in pictures, used to signal that the poster is a true Ilbe bug. Talking about this gesture could be an entire post all by itself. I've read conflicting information about the origins of the gesture: that the circle is the ㅇ and the fingers are ㅂ of Ilbe (일베), or that it comes from a gesture former president Roh Moo-hyun made while saying "이기야" during a speech and so this is now the name of the gesture itself? Who knows. Supposedly ultra-feminist group Megalia even mirrored it to represent a hand demonstrating Korean men's small penises. It's pretty amazing really that in many ways, despite this gesture existing abroad too and having it's own controversial history there (see the whole 4chan troll / white power thing), the gesture has its own unique controversial yet completely different history in Korea.
XOXO is of course the symbols for hugs and kisses, though I'm not sure why it was so "new" considering very popular K-pop group EXO used it as an album title back in 2013.
WYD is just "what you doing?". I'm guessing a lot of these older English short chatslang words are getting popular as more and more young Koreans are using those "meet foreign friends" apps. Recall that these types of apps were massively popular this year.
Top 5 Korean-to-English word searches for 2019
- 오징어 (squid)
- 냉장고 (refrigerator)
- 여행 (trip)
- 영어 (English)
- 한자사전 (Chinese dictionary)
Why these words? I have no idea about 2~5 but the word "squid" was #1 because of a scene in the popular TV program.
In an episode of "I Live Alone" the stars were in a hotel in Hong Kong and wanted to order dried squid jerky from room service, but debated about how to ask for it in English. Comic actor Lee Si-eon (이시언) suggested just asking for "dry triangle" since squid look like triangles. This led apparently to an influx of searches for exactly how to say 오징어 in English. Of course to be fair Koreans tend to have differentiated words between a few similar sea animals that I would just lump together as "squid." Same for "octopus." Call me a landlubber but anything with a round head and legs is octopus and long head with legs is squid. I don't make distinctions beyond that. Korean absolutely does.
You can see more word search results like this at their Naver blog post, including popular words based on age breakdowns:
🔗 https://blog.naver.com/dic_master/221748210171
They even have an Excel file you can download that contains an ordered list of top 10,000 words! Word #10,000 is "stinky" by the way. Small warning: a very small percentage of the words people searched are risque.
Apparently Naver Dictionary has released this list for a few years now, so you can also see previous years in the Related Posts section at the bottom of their post.
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