TeacherJoy

Have you ever heard “난리”? This Sino-Korean word 난리(亂離) originally meant “war.” 

‘난’ means chaotic or disordered, and ‘리’ means leaving or being separated from something.

If you look up ‘난리’ in a dictionary, one of its definition is ‘a chaotic situation where a lot of people are excited, loud, and noisy, either out of joy or anger.’ While both ‘전쟁’ and ‘난리’ can mean “war,” 난리 is far more commonly used in modern Korean to describe high-energy, wild, or chaotic situations.

Take a look at these examples. Korean is a language that relies heavily on context, so the translation of 난리 changes depending on what is happening.

• 제 수업이 재밌어서 사람들이 난리예요! (My class is so much fun that people are going crazy over it!)
• 코로나 때 마스크가 부족해서 진짜 난리였어요. (During COVID, there was a huge panic because masks were in short supply.)
• 몇 년 전에 강남에 홍수 나서 난리 났었어요. (A few years ago, Gangnam got flooded and it was chaos.)
• 지금 애들 웃고 떠들고 난리 났어. (The kids are laughing, making noise, and going wild right now.)
• 여기 엄청 난리야. 갑자기 비행기가 연착됐거든. (It’s total mayhem here because the flight suddenly got delayed.)
• 여기 난리 났어. 사람들 완전 신났어. (It’s crazy hype here! Everyone is super excited.)