As I explained on this blog a few weeks ago, there are two things I enjoy watching on Korean TV: the 8 o'clock news and commercials. I have already written a lot about TV news here, so now let's focus on Korean commercials.
It seems to me that there are mainly commercials for cosmetics and medicines, food, cars, household appliances, as well as banking products and "loan sharks". Nothing too surprising so far. What I like about Korean commercials is that they're so different from what I'm used to. There are a lot of colors, things flashing on the screen, and catchy music (with people dancing sometimes). For instance, I already mentioned this one about "English paralysis". It is funny and it has a catchy song. Well, a lot of Korean commercials are like that.
Some even become popular culture phenomena, like this one for Urusa liver medicines which dates back to a few years ago, that is before I was in Korea. But it looks like everyone here remembers that song.
Some even become popular culture phenomena, like this one for Urusa liver medicines which dates back to a few years ago, that is before I was in Korea. But it looks like everyone here remembers that song.
Catchy, isn't it? 간때문이야 ("Gan Daemuniya") means "It's because of your liver" so 피곤한 간 때문이야 ("Pigonhan Gan Daemuniya") is close to something like "If you're tired it's because of your liver".
Even when the commercial isn't that memorable, i noticed that some are played several times within a few minutes. So it's kind of hammered into the viewers'heads. Like this one, which I've seen so many times that it's now a kind of Pavlovian reflex for me to say "connected" when I hear the words "i-navi".
But I must admit that these commercials are pretty useful to learn Korean. For instance I started learning numbers and especially phone numbers with commercials such as these two.
"일오팔팔삼만구천" means 1588 39000. And "삼만구천원 부터" means "starting at ₩39,000). By the way, I hope you like the hooky "French Cancan" melody 😉
"일 팔 공 공 팔 이 팔 이" means 1800-8282, with 8282 sounding like "bballi bballi", which I wrote about here.
You can also learn Korean expressions or "chunks", like in this one:
You can also learn Korean expressions or "chunks", like in this one:
"걱정마세요" ("geogjeong maseyo") means something like "don't worry" or "no problem".
So now I'm gonna try and pay more attention to what's happening between commercial breaks, because it looks like I could also learn a lot from Korean drama, which is highly popular here, so expect a post about that soon!
