Home > Wikinae > [Korean Slang] #12 카공(Studying at a cafe)

[Korean Slang] #12 카공(Studying at a cafe)

Mirinae
May 8, 2024

Welcome to Wikinae’s Korean Slang #12

What environment do you find yourself most focused?

Cafes are one of the most popular places where people go to study and work ☕️

In today’s post, let’s find out how Koreans say “Studying at a cafe”!

In Korea, studying or doing assignments at cafes has become a cultural phenomenon. This has led to the creation of these words:

✔ 카공 is a word combination of ‘카페 (Cafe)’ and ‘공부 (Study)’ which means ‘studying at a cafe’.

✔ 카공족 is a word combination of ‘카공 (Studying at a cafe)’ and ‘족 (Tribe)’ which means ‘people who study at a cafe’.

It has recently become a socially controversial topic in Korea. Due to the increasing rents, some business owners feel pressured about the idea of 카공, and some even try to discourage it.

• • •

Examples

A: 내일 같이 카공하자.

Let’s study at a cafe tomorrow.

B: 그래! 어디 카페 갈까?

Which cafe do you want to go to?

• • •

A satirical video on ‘카공족’ | 1:04 — “맞네, 카공족” means “That’s right, he’s the one who studies at a cafe”

AND ONE MORE THING...

If you found this post enjoyable, you’re already halfway to experiencing the joy of Learning Korean with Mirinae!

Mirinae offers a diverse range of content, including K-pop videos, K-drama videos, interactive lessons, and much more.

Mirinae is a new kind of learning system tuned especially for learning Korean that integrate engaging, interactive lessons with deep AI. It covers all formal Korean, as well as idiomatic Korean, for a truly deep curriculum.

Mirinae Explorer is a unique explanatory learning resource for Korean students at all levels. It utilizes advanced artificial intelligence to enable students to explore and deeply understand the Korean language wherever they encounter it.

Mirinae L ibrary is a comprehesive grammar resource that provides various examples to aid Korean understanding.