The K-Pop Guide: Meanings of common words

So you've found a band you like, like their music, like the members, so now you're trying to find interviews or shows. The only thing is, they're using words you've never even heard of, some Korean, some... just plain odd. Look no further, because right here you'll find a guide with the most common words.

Oppa

You'll usually see this one from fans of guy groups. It's a Korean term, what girls call guys who are their age or a little older. It can also be used in a flirty way. Fans--the girls ones, anyway--call their male celebrities oppa, and their female celebrities Unnie. You might see a lot of 'Siwon oppa, I love you' lines around.

Nothing but a blatant excuse to put a picture of Siwon

Noona, Hyung

These ones you'll mostly hear from the celebrities themselves. Hyung is the male version of oppa, as in guys call older guys hyung. A rough translation would be 'older brother'. Members of a band usually call the older members hyung, to show respect and affection, unless thew difference in ages are really close. Or you're BIGBANG's Seungri.

If you've gone around the circuits of younger groups like B.A.P or NU'EST, then you've probably seen the words 'noona love' before. Noona means girl who's older, or basically 'older sister' to guys. 'Noona love' means the fan likes a guy younger than her, but usually less in a 'he's so hot' way and more like 'he's so cute I wanna squish him'.

Oh, and most guys in boybands like noonas. ;)

NU'EST's Ren gets a lot of noona love

I have noona love for Zelo, around 5 months younger than me

Maknae

Oh, you will see this everywhere. Maknae basically means the youngest of the band. They're generally supposed to be cute, and bully-able, and usually garner a lot of fans. In this category of maknaes we have U-KISS's Dongho, and SHINee's cute, clueless Taemin. Of course, we also have the rebellious, 'evil' maknaes like Super Junior's Kyuhyun and TVXQ's Changmin, and the that-guy-is-spoiled maknae Seungri, from BIGBANG.

Let the power of cute Taemin overwhelm you

Dongho, before he grew out his hair to try and look older
Oh, Dongho, why do you wanna not look cute?!

Selca

Selca is basically a short for of 'self-cam'. It's when stars put up pictures of themselves taken by their phones, either through mirrors or without. Every fan's favourite selca is the bare-faced selca, which is the one the star takes without any make-up on. True, un-made-up faces are rather hard to come by in the K-Pop world. Here're a few examples from the King of selcas, Super Junior's Yesung, as well as B2ST's Dongwoon.

I was flooded with pictures of Yesung selcas that I just grabbed one

Dongwoon. Because I also love Chopper.

Aegyo

Doing aegyo means doing something to make yourself look cute. This can be through poses in a picture, or some actions. It usually means making baby faces, puckering lips, or just being over all cute. The true kings of aegyo would have to Sungmin of Super Junior, EXO-M's Luhan, and, the true emperor, B2ST's Yoseob (or, as I like to call him, Yoseobie).

Luhan. Why are you so cute?

Don't search 'sungmin aegyo'. You will die of too much cuteness.

Yoseobie. Too much.

Sunbae(nim)

Basically means you're senior, whether in your profession or in your company. The suffix 'nim' is to add more respect. SE7EN, also in G-Dragon's label YG and having debuted first, is G-Dragon's sunbae. Pronounced pretty much how it's written: sun-bay (nim).

Ssi

A suffix used to show respect to someone, whether older or not. Pronounced 'she'.

Saranghae

Easy. I love you. That's it. The 'a's are pronounced hard, like in the word... 'hard'.

Henry, saranghae

Daebak

Basically meaning something along the lines of 'awesome', 'amazing', or in true couch-surfer style, 'sweet'. Can be used to refer to anything from people, to shows to songs and actions. Pronounced 'day-bahk' (I hate writing things how they're supposed to be pronounced. It's so hard)

Variety

This is just a normal English word, right? Wrong. It's used to refer to Korean shows that have the 'variety' element-- they're weird, with out-there concepts or games, and are freaking hilarious. 'Variety skill' means having the sort of skill or personality to be supremely hilarious whenever they need you to be. Variety shows can make or break a band's popularity, which is why every band must have a variety expert. The celebrity kings of variety are easily Super Junior's Heechul and BIGBANG's Daesung, MBLAQ's variety guy is obviously Lee Joon, in 2AM we have Jo Kwon, in SHINee Minho.

Heechul, we miss you! Come back from military soon

No one like our Daesungie

 It appears I like pictures of funny guys in white. Hmm.

Bias

This one is used among fans. When you're asked "Who's your bias?", they're pretty much asking who your favourite member in the band is. That's pretty much it. Like, my Super Junior bias is Kyuhyun, for BIGBANG Seungri, SHINee's Onew.

One of the four billion pictures I have of Kyuhyun

Seungri, my wonderful

Onew, Onew, Onew!

Well, that's all I have for now. Hope this helped, and hope you enjoyed reading :)