[Korean Culture & Language] Dad Jokes - Food

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https://blog.naver.com/yangkun100/220730441697

‘바나나 먹으면 나한테 반하나? (Will eating a banana make you fall in love with me?)’ is a popular dad joke that almost every Korean knows. What does a banana have to do with falling in love? To be frank, there is no connection between the two. This corny sentence was created only to be funny since the words ‘바나나(banana)’ and ‘반하나(will you fall in love)’ sound similar in Korean. 

There are many other food-related dad jokes like this.


‘곶감’ means ‘dried persimmon’. ‘곧’ means ‘soon’, and ‘감’ means ‘on my way’ or ‘will be there’. People joke and say ‘곶감을 먹으면 내가 너에게 곶감’ since ‘곶감(persimmon)’ and ‘곧 감(will be there soon)’ sound so similar to each other. It means ‘I’ll be there shortly if you eat dried persimmon’. 


Photo by Chang Duong on Unsplash

‘오렌지를 먹은지 얼마나 오렌지’ is another popular dad joke. The word ‘오렌지’ usually refers to ‘an orange’. But it can also mean ‘It’s been a while since…’. When someone says ‘오렌지를 먹은지 얼마나 오렌지,’ it means ‘It’s been a while since I’ve had an orange’. The sentence itself, like many other dad jokes, is funny yet devoid of logic.


‘고로케’ means ‘croquette,’ whereas ‘그렇게’ means ‘like that’ or ‘that’s all’. ‘이 고로케는 고로케 먹어야 맛있더라’ means ‘This croquette tastes best when you eat it like that’. 

On yscamerashop.modoo.at, a writer wrote a story about him and his wife going to a Korean snack bar and ordering a croquette with some other food. They didn’t get any croquette because they said ‘떡볶이랑 튀김이랑 순대 음... 고로케 주셔요 (We’ll get some tteokbokki, soondae, and… umm… Croquette, please)’. Because ‘croquette’ sounds so similar to‘그렇게(that’s all)’ in Korean, the owner thought they said ‘tteokbokki, soondae, and… that’s all’.

Have you ever had a situation where you said something that sounded close to something else, and the listener misunderstood you?


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