아웃뷁 하우스
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007The OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE’s franchise restaurants are also found in Korea, and they are spelled “아웃백 스테이크 하우스” and it’s very popular here, especially among young women (or maybe ONLY among young women and some young men who want to impress them.) 
Having a meal at 아웃백 스테이크 하우스 is quite expensive compared to cheaper and more regular meals, because an average lunch or dinner in Korea would cost about 3,000 won ~ 6,000 won (US$4~7) but a meal at 아웃백 스테이크 하우스 starts from 20,000 won (US$ 23). But the food is good, and the service is excellent, so the high price doesn’t stop people from going there.
And I saw this funny signboard of a steakhouse near my campus, called 아웃뷁 하우스.
뷁 is not just a funny and wrong spelling of the word 백 in 아웃백, but it actually means something, and you will never find it in any Korean English dictionary you have. But it’s usued quite often in Korean chat rooms online.
The word 뷁 comes from this singer named 문희준, who used to be a member of the male singing/dancing group H.O.T. until the team was broken, and he became a solo singer afterwards amist worries (because he’s not the most talented guy in singing, obviously).
In his last album he had a song that had the English word “BREAK” in the lyrics. And no one knew what he said before reading the lyrics and people thought it somehow sounded like “뷁”, a word that doesn’t exist, and ever since then, the word 뷁 has been used to mean that you’re upset or not happy with something or you even think something is disgusting. 
So it’s used like this:
A: 야, 사장님이 크리스마스에도 출근하래. (Hey the president wants us to work on the Christmas day too!)
B: 뷁!!
So any Korean who knows this word would have a good laugh out of it, so I thought it would be good for you to know, too!
By the way, I haven’t been to this 아웃뷁 하우스 yet, but my friends say the food is very good there.
Posted by Hyunwoo in Humor in Korean |
December 12th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
ha ha… my computer can’t even display the character right! It just shows the parts in parenthenses! (ㅂㅞㄹㄱ) ! I guess since it doesn’t exist, it can’t even make the syllable!
현우.. does your computer display it?
and what on earth is “등갈비?” Is it a cut of meat, like the back of a cow?
December 12th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
문희준! I didn’t like his solo work, and I only liked one or two of H.O.T.’s songs. I’m a huge 신화 fan instead :3
But that thing about 뷁 is amusing, I think I’ve heard that word before.
December 12th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
But you can read 뷁, right? Haha. And you can’t type it on a cellphone either.
등갈비 is back rib. The back bone of a cow with some ribs as well.
It’s really good, although all I’ve had before is just ‘ribs’ not 등갈비 
December 12th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Taliana, you’ve heard it before ? Wow. I guess you’ve watched a lot of Korean TV - that’s great!
December 13th, 2007 at 6:18 am
How do you even pronounce “뷁?” Like “bwek”?
ㅋㅋ
December 13th, 2007 at 7:20 am
Hyunwoo-sun
Great humor and nice pictures!
S_R_C
Why haven’t you go to 아웃뷁 하우스?
December 13th, 2007 at 9:21 am
There are so many things about Korea that I don’t think I’ll ever understand. How that misheard word has been appropriated into a slang term for dislike/disgust seems to be one of those things.
Thanks for the Korean humour lesson, Hyunwoo!
December 13th, 2007 at 11:37 am
지훈,
you pronounce it like “bwek”, but you need to insert a touch of “R” right before the “K”. Haha. At least that’s how I pronounced it.
Sindy,
Thank you.
I’m just not a big fan of steaks, but I might go there someday to find out if they’re really good. Heh heh.
Daniel,
Yes, I think these things are one of the hardest things to understand, especially when a word is suddenly created and spread so widely and it’s not in the dictionary.
I’ll introduce more of them here, so … heh please keep reading. 
December 14th, 2007 at 12:58 am
Very interesting post Hyunwoo! 너무 재미있어요!
ㅋㅋㅋㅋ poor 문희준! ㅋㅋㅋ, But anyway, most koreans have trouble with the english R sound.
I love that restaurant! the food is really really good! 그렇지만 비싸요!
There’s an Outback SteakHouse near my house. If i go walking i can be there like in 1 minute or less ^^.
저는 등갈비 너무 좋아해요!
아주 맛있어요! ^^
그래서 지금 저는 등갈비 먹고싶어요!
Oh and I don’t find it weird that koreans create new words from things like that haha. People in my country are like that too! ㅋㅋㅋ I can write you a book of words that people in my country have created that have no sense ㅋㅋㅋㅋ!
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:05 pm
문희준! I’m a new fan of his, actually a few songs of his are pretty good like White Angels and 상자속의 그댄 ^^
“저는 등갈비 너무 좋아해요!
아주 맛있어요! ^^
그래서 지금 저는 등갈비 먹고싶어요”
아아~! I kinda understood what you wrote, something like “To me, back ribs are very good! They are very tasty! ^^ So now I want to eat back ribs”
I hope I’m sort of right! Whaaa! I feel so ……HAPPY that i understood it!!!
I have a hard time pronouncing the R sound too! I’m vietnamese and even though I was born and raised in America if you asked me to say “rollar coaster” it would sound like “rolluh coastuh” and even the word 물 sounds like muul or something to that effect but i can ensure you, i did not pronounce it right. 내 쌍둥이 has this odd “accent” too but oddly enough my brothers don’t have this accent.
Whoops got off topic. 뷁 wow, i could type it. ㅋㅋ I want to say it next time i talk to my 한국친구! But I’ll probably say all Americanlike (with my accent) so it’ll come out sounding, “bwreak!”
내 한국친구: …..what are you talking about? O_o
October 23rd, 2008 at 4:21 am
So yeah, I realize this isn’t the newest thing here, but as an afterthought, Outback Steak House runs around the same price here in America. (I live in Texas)
On average, if I were to go to the restaurant here and get a steak, depending on the steak, it could be anywhere from $25-40 easy.
Come to think of it, that seems a bit pricey even for American standards. I wouldn’t know really, I’m more of a fast food kind of girl.