Korean Job Discussion Forums

[dirty_scraps83]

I've been watching a ton of movies on the likes of OCN and CGV and my rudimentary Korean keeps me glancing at the subtitles. I think it helps slightly learning some Korean.

It seems even when people (obvious to an English speaker maybe not to Koreans) are being informal, sarcastic, snarky, lippy, deviant and downright rude, the subtitles still use honourific nouns, noun endings and verb endings.

eg "Look here, Doc!" (very demanding, disparaging tone)

"이봐요, 박사님!" the Korean subtitles come up.

Just wondering whether Koreans do this in real life. Regardless of age or seniority if I'd want to get a message through to some ajossi, I'd be leaving out the 'nim's and the 'yo's.

Can't say I've ever seen a Korean act disparaging to a senior so maybe it don't translate 'cos it don't relate.

edit -a title change mite generate more interest- edit

[cunning_stunt]

Why would you learn Korean ? You are not korean . You can never be Korean .

[nobbyken]

Sure makes life easier (a little less alien), and some have a Korean spouse and children.

[Young FRANKenstein]

[tomato]

Cunning Stunt, do you apply the same line of reasoning to speakers of other languages?
Since this forum is for foreign English teachers in Korea, I assume that you teach English to Koreans.
How can you do this in good conscience?

[cunning_stunt]

[ryouga013]

[excitinghead]

Last year Korean women's groups brought up the fact that translators of Western sitcoms and movies almost always had the women talking to men in honorific speech, but the men talking to women in informal "banmal," completely regardless of the levels of formality the actors were actually using. We're talking about things like Friends and Sex and the City here, and the guys that were writing the subtitles were making out that Phoebe spoke to Joey as formally as if he was a stranger 50 years older than her.

Needless to say, most Korean couples don't speak like this these days, although they used to.

[dirty_scraps83]

[excitinghead]

You're welcome. Here's a link:

http://www.rjkoehler.com/2006/11/17/the-sexual-sociology-of-dubbing/

[Justin Hale]

[excitinghead]

Is that supposed to counter his "argument" Justin?

And what's your problem with Northerners? Plently of us Geordies are both great English teachers and learning other languages ourselves.

[sjk1128]

In general it is very difficult for us native speakers of English to relate to the levels of formality that exist in other languages. Here's a story from my experience to illustrate the difference:

The only language with levels of respect that I speak well enough to give me some perspective is Italian. When I was working in Italy, I had a few arguments with my boss. There are only two levels of language commonly used in modern Italian. She used the lower one with me because she was much older than me and my boss, and I used the higher one with her. Within the language and culture this relationship was as irrefutable as the nature of being a chair or being a table: it's a kind of simple definition no one disputes. Therefore, when I argued with her, the endings I used on my verbs did not change. During one argument, I said something like, "How could you possibly think that? If you don't think I've finished my work, then go look and see for yourself!!!" I was angry, and I wasn't being polite - the way we would think of in English, but I never changed the level of speech I was using because it just wouldn't have made sense. Regardless of what else was happening or how we were feeling, she was still older than me and my boss. My being angry did not change that. I think this is somewhat the same in Korean. Korean children can be angry with their parents and yell at them like anywhere in the world, but their verb endings aren't going to change, as though they're suddenly the parents, because that's just not true - by definition.

I'm going on too long now, but maybe you get my point. Formality (recognition of the fundamental definition of the relationship between the speakers) and being nice or in a good mood are different animals.

[mindmetoo]

A friend noticed her student was saying "yippy yi ka yo" a lot thinking it was a swear word. She had to explain to him it wasn't. She could figure out where he was getting the idea it was a swear word. Then she caught Die Hard on TV. She noticed "yippy yi ka yo, mother fkr!" was being subtitled as "yippy yi ka yo, [english swear word]!"

[dirty_scraps83]

I just watched a movie where a lot of "f*** you"s and were translated as "엿 먹어" - eat toffee or something. hhhmmm interesting.

it seems Korean translators are very sensitive about curse words.

Fair enuff that's their prerogative I guess, but if I was Korean as an adult I'd like to be treated like one.