Abstract
This paper inquiries into the similarities and differences of 'food' related expressions in Korean and Czech. Both bap in Korean and chléb in Czech transcend their literal meaning and designate important cultural elements such as provisions, life, means of livelihood etc. The aim of the contrastive linguistic research is to assist a Czech learner of Korean as well as a Korean language instructor to understand meaning of vocabulary cultural differences. At first, this research classifies expressions Czech equivalents of Korean bap into four groups:
1) same form, same meaning,
2) same form, different meaning,
3) different form, same meaning,
4) different form, different meaning. Through the 'same form, same meaning' and 'different form, same meaning' groups one can learn expressions designating similar concepts. As Korean and Czech are two distant languages, it is apparent that the 'same form, same meaning' group is relatively small and these expressions are quite easy to understand for both Koreans and Czechs while the dissimilarity of the 'different form, same meaning' may be an interesting aspect for the learner. The second part of the research focuses on expressions that combine and accent different semantic aspects. While in Korean, job or means of livelihood are represented by composited terms such as bapgeureut or bapjul, in Czech these concepts are represented by expressions such as jistý chléb or přijít o chleba. Comprehension of such differences may clarify understanding of rules of both languages.