# 숯불고기



## NewAmerica

In my city, there is a restaurant named 숯불고기, siding with four Chinese characters: 韩国料理，which means Korean Cuisine.  (Note:料理， when it means cuisine, it is actually Kanji, not modern standard Chinese)

But then I put 숯불고기 into Google Translator, it simply means charcoal meat (and some online translation application translates it as barbecue by charcoal), not Korean Cuisine at all.

I wonder whether 숯불고기 is standard Korean (combination) and what Korean characters should be used to express Korean Cuisine.

Thanks in advance


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## mink-shin

I have to ask the store owner to be sure though, but I think that, in this case, 韩国料理 implies that the 숯불고기 they sell is Korean _Style _rather than that 숯불고기 is Korean Cuisine.


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## sowhat59

Very interesting question. I'm a native Korean speaker and I had to double check Korean/Chinese character dictionary before posting this and I'm still only 98% sure.

 숯 (charcoal) is Korean word, not borrowed from Chinese character so is 고기 (meat). However 불 is from Chinese character 火 in which Chinese, I don't know how to pronounce but must be similar to how Koreans and Japanese pronounce. 
So yes, 숯불고기 is a common name of dish which also means a method of grilling meat: charcoal barbecue meat. 

韩国料理 means Korean Cuisine as you already know and interestingly enough, 国 is written with a simplified character (or modern?) which is not widely known among Koreans. 

To answer your question, 숯불고기 is a compound word, 숯불 + 고기 but since the word 불 is not a standard (or pure) Korean, it's probably right to say that the word 숯불고기 is not entirely a pure Korean word. Also, 韩国料理 written in Korean is 한국요리.


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## Rance

mink-shin said:


> 韩国料理 implies that the 숯불고기 they sell is Korean _Style _rather than that 숯불고기 is Korean Cuisine.



I think Korean style food _is _practically Korean Cuisine.
I don't think there's any need to differentiate those two terms or maybe I'm just failing to catch your main point.



sowhat59 said:


> To answer your question, 숯불고기 is a compound word, 숯불 + 고기 but since the word 불 is not a standard (or pure) Korean, it's probably right to say that the word 숯불고기 is not entirely a pure Korean word. Also, 韩国料理 written in Korean is 한국요리.



숯불고기 generally refers to 불고기 grilled on charcoal(숯).
Hence 숯 + 불고기 is probably more precise explanation.
불고기, 김치 and 비빔밥 are top three most famous Korean cuisine.
Also 불 from 불고기 means fire and is pure Korean(순우리말).


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## sowhat59

Rance said:


> I think Korean style food _is _practically Korean Cuisine.
> I don't think there's any need to differentiate those two terms or maybe I'm just failing to catch your main point.
> Charcoal barbecuing isn't only found in Korean cuisine but other cultures as well. In that sense, mink-shin probably meant 숯불고기 is Korean style charcoal barbecuing to which I agree.
> 
> 숯불고기 generally refers to 불고기 grilled on charcoal(숯).
> Hence 숯 + 불고기 is probably more precise explanation.
> 불고기, 김치 and 비빔밥 are top three most famous Korean cuisine.
> Also 불 from 불고기 means fire and is pure Korean(순우리말).



I might be wrong but as far as I know, 불 is NOT pure Korean but phonetically pronounced Chinese character 火 which I mentioned in my previous post.
When Koreans hear the word 불고기 they associate it with a specific meat dish marinated in fruit sugar+soy sauce rather than charcoal grill which is why, as you pointed out, 숯불고기 precisely means charcoal grilled meat.
To break down each syllable, 숯 is pure Korean while 불 isn't. 고기 is one word (pure Korean) which means not only edible meat but also flesh in general including humans although in latter case, it has condescending connotation.
Hence, the word 숯불고기 cannot be pure Korean because of the word 불.


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## mink-shin

Rance said:


> I don't think there's any need to differentiate those two terms or maybe I'm just failing to catch your main point.


Hmm. What I wanted to mean was like this. Sometimes I go to my cousins' house, who are American. Every times I go there, they make me many dishes telling me those are traditional Korean food. About the point their telling me like that, I felt weird at first. It's because of their style of how to cook the dishes. They used much more butter or cooking oil than I used to expect for them to be used if those dishes had been Korean traditional food, and there were some other points in cooking from the traditional style I had thought it should be. As I've never been to the restaurant NewAmerica said about, I'm not sure if my guessing is true though.

According to WR dictionary, cuisine means a style or manner of cooking. It seems that I had knew wrongly about the word. Thank you, Rance, for picking the point out. And sorry if there's anyone who was confused by me.


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## Rance

sowhat59 said:


> I might be wrong but as far as I know, 불 is NOT pure Korean but phonetically pronounced Chinese character 火 which I mentioned in my previous post.



I'm still not following your logic.
Are you talking about 불 화(火)?
불 is the meaning of 火 in Korean, usually pure Korean.
화 is its pronunciation and it is what we consider as hanja.
For example, 하늘 and 땅 from  하늘 천, 따 지 are pure Korean which should not be by your logic.
There are some hanja that lack korean counterpart such as 용 용(龍), but that is not the case for 불.
Anyhow easiest way to check is by looking up dictionary.
If a word has hanja for it, it will be shown which is not the case for 불.
You can compare it with another 불 (弗)

And to mink-shin, I get now what you were trying t say.
That sounds like some fusion cuisine haha.


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## actively

I don't have anything to add to this translation other than to ascertain that by linguistic rules, 불 is indeed purely of Korean roots (순우리말/고유어/토막이말) 
whereas the pronunciation for 火 is 화. The confusion comes because, as mentioned before, the 'purer' _meaning_ of the word comes before the character's pronunciation (불 화). Huǒ is the Chinese pronunciation for 火 for reference


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