Beverly Hills Lingual Institute
Beverly Hills Lingual Institute
Beverly Hills Lingual Institute
Beverly Hills Lingual Institute

Blog      Language, Learning and Culture

Classes in More than 35 Languages return to blog index

Nyusu Flash: You Know 26 Words in Korean

In Korean Language in Culture and Society, author Ho-min Sohn estimates that English comprises over ninety percent of the 20,000 loanwords currently used in Korean. New loanwords are imported from English on a daily basis as a result of global communication in the Internet era, and more will certainly have emerged in the ten years since this book was written.

Sohn lists the following twenty-six examples of English words which have permeated the Korean language:

  • allibai   |   alibi

  • pǔrip'ing   |   briefing

  • pŏsǔ   |   bus

  • k'allori   |   calorie

  • k'aemp'ŏsǔ   |   campus

  • k'aset'ǔ   |   cassette

  • k'at'egori   |   category

  • k'akt'eil   |   cocktail

  • k'ŏp'i   |   coffee

  • k'alla   |   collar

  • k'ŏmp'yut'ŏ   |   computer

  • k'ǔredit k'adǔ   |   credit card

  • kolp'ǔ   |   golf

  • kǔrup   |   group

  • hint'ǔ   |   hint

  • aisuk'urim   |   ice cream

  • nyusǔ   |   news

  • p'ati'i   |   party

  • rip'ot'ǔ   |   report

  • seil   |   sale

  • semina   |   seminar

  • sŏbisǔ   |   service

  • syop'ing   |   shopping

  • s(y)up'ŏ   |   supermarket

  • pija   |   visa

  • pijyŏn   |   vision

The Korean vocabulary, Sohn estimates, consists of thirty percent native, sixty-five percent Sino-Korean (Chinese-character based), and five percent loanwords. Japanese speakers will find about three hundred cognates; for instance sŏm (Korean) vs. sima (Japanese), for island, and kom (Korean) vs. kuma (Japanese), for bear.

Korean and Japanese share many genetic and typological features. Through close contact with the Japanese people, especially during the thirty-five years of Japanese colonization that ended with World War II, Korean language, culture, and society underwent considerable influence from Japan and vice versa.

Further reading

  • Cars
  • Communication
  • Culture
  • Fashion
  • Food
  • Language
  • Travel
Contracts and Cultures

2022-11-27

ABBA are back

2021-09-03

Happy Dragon Boat Festival

2020-06-25

I Look Up As I Walk

2020-01-31

The Values of Volvo

2020-01-27

German on Both Sides of The Wall

2020-01-24

Today is Macaron Day

2019-03-20

What Can Language Not Do?

2018-12-10

A Star is Born

2018-11-06

Time for a Saab Story

2018-10-23

Andalucia, en Ocho Joyas

2018-08-22

Idioms from Around the World

2018-01-23

Who Misses Skeuomorphism?

2018-01-22

The Wrong Way to Learn a Language

2017-12-05

The Hungarian Language

2017-12-01

Uh-Oh The Glottal Stop

2017-11-16

The Languages of Doctors

2017-10-23

How to Establish a Brand

2017-10-11

The Luxury Experience

2017-09-27

Learning Language is Child's Play

2017-09-20

Language as Jazz

2017-08-25

It's All Polish To Me

2017-08-24

Farsi is Sugar

2017-08-18

76 Common Verbs for Dutch Learners

2017-08-10

So You Want to Learn Hindi?

2017-08-08

Ingrid Bergman on Language

2017-08-07

The Secret to Reading Japanese

2017-08-03

Losing the War One Slide at a Time

2017-08-02

Blowin' in the Wind

2017-07-31

Getting Around

2017-07-28

Alpha, Bravo, Charlie

2017-07-27

Choosing a Language to Learn

2017-07-26

The First Volvo

2017-07-24

Improve Your Public Speaking

2017-07-21

Where Did I Come From?

2017-07-20

Happy Emoji Day

2017-07-17

Czech Out the First Robots

2017-07-14

Mind Your Grammar

2017-07-12

Is this a BMW?

2017-07-10

How Many German Words Do You Know?

2017-06-23

Como agua para chocolate

2017-06-21

Traveling Tips

2017-06-20

I Love Daddy

2017-06-15

We'll Bring the Coffee

2017-06-08

The Challenges of Learning Arabic

2017-06-01

Tulipmania

2017-05-30

Saving Hebrew

2017-05-29

Keeper of the Bridge

2017-05-25

Bewitchingly Flawed

2017-05-18

Japan's Caprice

2017-05-16

The First Martians

2017-05-15

Dolma or Tolma?

2017-05-12

Dutch in Paradise

2017-05-08

How Does the Bilingual Brain Work?

2015-08-19

Reasons to Learn Italian

2015-03-24

Reasons to Learn French

2015-02-27

Truth in Advertising

2014-07-10

Top Quality Spanish Teachers

2013-12-23

A Better Way to Learn Italian

2013-12-23

High Quality Spanish Courses

2013-12-23

Italian School

2013-12-23

Top Quality French Teachers

2013-12-23

Finding the Best Language School

2013-12-23

Italian Tutors

2013-12-23

New Year's Resolution

2012-12-12