결국 이번 시험도 미역국 먹었다

The line, explained

Korean films love the 고시생, the young person living in a tiny rented room, studying for years for a civil-service or bar exam. Today's line is the voice-over of one of them, staring at a results page that does not contain their number. They do not say "I failed". They say they ate seaweed soup again. It is a funny, slightly bitter idiom, and like a lot of Korean exam culture it rests on the belief that slippery food makes you slip.

결국 means "in the end, eventually, after all". It is the word for when something you feared finally happens. 이번 is "this time, this round", and 시험 is "exam, test". The particle 도 means "also, too", so 이번 시험도 is "this exam too", which tells us the narrator has failed before. That one 도 carries a whole backstory of earlier attempts, the way "yet again" would in English, without spelling any of it out.

미역국 is 미역, "seaweed", the soft brown kelp, plus 국, "soup". 먹었다 is 먹다, "to eat", in the plain past, the style used in narration and diaries. The full idiom is 미역국을 먹다, but speech drops the object marker. Listen for the sound change: 국 right before 먹 becomes 궁, because ㄱ turns into ㅇ before ㅁ, so in fast speech you hear mi-yeok-gung meo-geot-da. That is nasal assimilation, the same rule that makes 한국말 sound like han-gung-mal.

Why seaweed? Partly texture: 미역 is slippery, and 미끄러지다, "to slip", is also slang for failing. A popular story ties the idiom to 1907, when the Korean army was disbanded, 해산, a word that sounds like 해산 meaning childbirth, after which mothers traditionally eat seaweed soup. Either way, Koreans avoid it on exam day and gift sticky 엿 instead. The idiom conjugates like 먹다: 미역국 먹을까 봐 걱정이야, "I'm scared I'll flunk", or 면접에서 미역국 먹었어, "I failed the interview".

Mind the context, because seaweed soup is also the classic birthday breakfast. 생일에 미역국 먹었어? means "did you have your birthday soup?", a kind question. 시험에서 미역국 먹었어? means "did you fail?", a painful one. Now swap the test: 결국 이번 면접도 미역국 먹었다 (the interview too), 오디션도 (the audition, for a trainee story), 면허 시험도 (the driving test), 승진 시험도 (the promotion exam). In every case, the soup tastes bitter.