KOREAN IDIOM What happens when you become a rice cake?

떡이 되다 TO BECOME A RICE CAKE

This idiom describes a physical or mental state.

Rice cake is essentially rice that has been beaten into mush with a big hammer and so that’s the idea behind this idiom. If (heaven forbid) you see someone get physically or verbally beaten up or a team get beaten in a sports match then this is the idiom to use. They have ‘become rice cake’.

And it can also be used to describe someone who is drunk and their mind and body are compromised by alcohol.

술이 떡이 되다 means the person has become rice cake after drinking too much.

This describes exactly how my brain and body feel after a night of drinking… soft and spongy and a little bit achy.

In British English we can just use the expression ‘to be hammered’ without actually being hammered into rice cake. For example…

How did Liverpool do last night? (Football team) 

Bad. We got hammered.

OR

He looks rough.

Yeah, I saw him in the pub last night. He got hammered.