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Korean: 어떡해

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Warp3
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 Message 1 of 16
10 March 2010 at 7:09pm | IP Logged 
I'm not having much luck finding the definition for the word 어떡해, which I've seen appear quite often (especially in music lyrics). Initially I mistook this word for the nearly identically pronounced 어떻게 (which I know means "how") but once I realized there were actually two separate words showing up, I had no luck actually finding the definition for 어떡해.

Just from looking at the word, my initial instinct is that it is a conjugation of 어떡하다. Google Translate claims that 어떡 means "what" and 어떡하다 means "what is," but then claims that 어떡해 means "crap" instead. o_O So, I turned to my trusty Essence Min-Jung K-to-E dictionary and it doesn't show anything for any of those variants (which is surprising as that's where I've found definitions for tons of words that I couldn't find anywhere else).
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crafedog
Diglot
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 Message 2 of 16
10 March 2010 at 7:59pm | IP Logged 
Strangely 어떡해 means "Ooops!" (or "crap!") according to my Korean friend. She said it's something you say after you make a mistake, like spilling some milk.

http://endic.naver.com/krenEntry.nhn?entryId=f5122d0240cf485 eb47ce34578b9c55c is also quite useful for Korean-English/English-Korean online translation. It's not perfect but it's still pretty good.
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Warp3
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 Message 3 of 16
10 March 2010 at 8:58pm | IP Logged 
Hmmm...I've got that site bookmarked, but I guess I didn't think to check it for this particular word (though I know I've used it for other words in the past). Most of the examples there seem to imply a "what + do" kind of meaning ("What did I do?", "What did you do?", "What do I do?", etc.), so the "oops / crap" meaning must be an idiomatic use (albeit one that still makes some sense when literally translated as something like "What do/did I do?").

Edited by Warp3 on 10 March 2010 at 9:02pm

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vientito
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 Message 4 of 16
10 March 2010 at 10:20pm | IP Logged 
It is high time Koreans put up an online dictionary for all slangs and teen speech in current context. We are tired of learning the formality without being able to understand much about the "real" language used.


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Warp3
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 Message 5 of 16
10 March 2010 at 10:35pm | IP Logged 
I've actually got a couple Korean slang phrase books at home, but they aren't really formatted in such a way to make for useful searching. I need to check through them to see if this term appears somewhere in one of them (now that I have a general idea what type of phrase I'm seeking).
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morganie
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 Message 6 of 16
10 March 2010 at 10:35pm | IP Logged 
Literally it means "How do I do?"

In practice it means "What am I going to do?" "Oh no" or any sort of expression dealing with panic, frustration, etc.
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The Real CZ
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 Message 7 of 16
11 March 2010 at 2:06am | IP Logged 
I know you don't watch many Korean shows, but girls say it all the time. All the time. Yeah, it's basically along the lines of what other people have said: "What to do?/what do I do?/etc."
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Warp3
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 Message 8 of 16
11 March 2010 at 2:52am | IP Logged 
CZ: In other words, if I'd quit slacking and watch those DVDs (that I mentioned in the other thread) already, I'd have probably known this one by now...hehe

Actually, now that you mention that, though, I think in a few of the non-subtitled bits of dialog in the videos I've watched where I had assumed they said 어떻게 may have actually been 어떡해 instead since that word makes a bit more sense given the context. If that is the case, then I apparently have heard it in dialogs, I just didn't realize it at the time.

Thanks for the help everyone. :)

Edited by Warp3 on 11 March 2010 at 2:53am



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