# 갈매기 표지판



## Hyperpolyglot

I was playing a hidden object game in Korean and one of the items in the checklist was 갈매기 표지판 which as far as I know means a seagull sign, so I kept trying to find a sign with a seagull on it but couldn't find it, so I google 갈매기 표지판 and all I see was the traffic sign with curve indicators, not a single seagull, why is that?


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## boomluck

It is the first time I found out that the arrow-shaped sign is called 갈매기 표지판 in Korean. 

Koreans tend to name things with their imagination, I guess.
The shape of "<" looks similar to a seagull flying in the air when rotated 90 degree to the counterclockwise. This is why, I think.
We also call "~" 물결 표시, "#" 우물 정(chinese character 井), "@" 골뱅이, etc, because it reminds us those things.


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## Hyperpolyglot

boomluck said:


> It is the first time I found out that the arrow-shaped sign is called 갈매기 표지판 in Korean.
> 
> Koreans tend to name things with their imagination, I guess.
> The shape of "<" looks similar to a seagull flying in the air when rotated 90 degree to the counterclockwise. This is why, I think.
> We also call "~" 물결 표시, "#" 우물 정(chinese character 井), "@" 골뱅이, etc, because it reminds us those things.


so I should not learn this word since it's not common and even you I assume are a native speaker of Korean and never know about this word so maybe it's a waste of energy to learn and memorize it? Maybe I should concentrate on basic common words because I just need to talk to people in everyday common situation?


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## boomluck

Hyperpolyglot said:


> so I should not learn this word since it's not common and even you I assume are a native speaker of Korean and never know about this word so maybe it's a waste of energy to learn and memorize it? Maybe I should concentrate on basic common words because I just need to talk to people in everyday common situation?



I recommend learning and memorizing as much as possible. I think none is unnecessary when learning foreign language. Even slangs, bad words, or ancient words will be helpful. 

There is an idiom in Korean. 아는만큼 보인다. It means one can see the world just as much as he knows. Looking at a complicated electronic product, one can see the mechanism of the product if he knows about some physics and science, while the other who don't have such knowledge see the appearance.

I didn't mean it is unnecessary. I was expressing a surprise that I have been a native for a (some) long time but never knew the word exactly. If the statement was insulting, I appologize. Please understand expressions of non-English speakers are somewhat impolite.


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