Menu Choice with a Dietary Restriction
You are on a school trip in Seoul and have 20 minutes to order lunch. You are vegetarian: you eat eggs and dairy but no meat, fish, or seafood. The menu is handwritten and has no pictures: 김치볶음밥 7,000원 참치김밥 5,000원 계란라면 6,000원 불고기덮밥 8,000원 You can read 김치, 밥, 계란, 라면, and 고기. You do not know 참치 or 불고기. The server is busy. You have a translation app but the school rule says you may use it only after you have tried to infer from the menu. Your friend says, 'Just order the cheapest one.' You have a budget of 8,000 won and must eat before the bus leaves. The line is long and you are very hungry.
1. Which dish is the safest choice and why? Use the words you know.
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계란라면 is safest. You know 계란 = egg and 라면 = ramen; neither word signals meat or fish. 김치볶음밥 looks meat-free, but kimchi can contain fish sauce, and you cannot confirm. 참치김밥 is unknown. 불고기덮밥 contains 고기 = meat, so avoid. Reasoning: when dietary risk is high, choose by known ingredients and avoid unknown words; cheapest is not safest.
2. How can you infer the meaning of 참치 and 불고기 without a dictionary?
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Use word parts and menu structure. 불고기 contains 고기 (meat), so it is a meat dish. 참치 is the unknown part of 참치김밥; gimbap names often put the filling before 김밥, so 참치 is likely a filling, possibly fish or seafood. Since you cannot confirm, treat it as unsafe. Reasoning: morphological clues (고기) give a reliable answer; structural clues (X + 김밥) give a hypothesis, not certainty. Do not gamble with an allergy or strict diet.
3. Write the Korean question you would ask the server to check whether a dish contains meat, using a learned pattern.
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'이거 고기가 들어 있어요?' means 'Does this have meat in it?' Breakdown: 이거 = this, 고기 = meat, 가 = subject particle, 들어 있어요 = is contained. A simpler alternative is '고기 없어요?' ('No meat?'), but it is less precise. Reasoning: the question uses a learned pattern and a known word; it is polite and direct enough for a busy server. Pointing at the menu item is acceptable here because the task is real-world ordering, not the no-gesture role-play.