Korean Job Discussion Forums

[myugen]

When a Korean girl calls someone 어머님, what can that person be to her? I think it can mean her own mother, her boyfriend's mother, her husband's mother, but can it also be used to call a close friend's mother as well?

[Ruthdes]

I call the adjumma that runs my local 재육쌈밥 restaurant 어머니 and she loves it! I get a hug every time I go in there. Not an exact answer to your question, but an example of where it does work (but maybe it's tolerated from me cos I not Korean). I would also be interested to know the technical answer to this question.

[SeoulFinn]

Koreans don't like to call people by their given names (i.e. that's considered rude) and tend to call people by their title/rank/status.

For example, if you know a certain person and meet his or her mother, you could call her a [person's name] mother and not by her name. I think that you can even omit the person's name if you want, but I'm not not absolutely sure. I think this is the case you have witnessed.

Another example: Female co-worker gives birth to a baby named Sumi. Before this you called her "teacher Kim", but now you could call her as Sumi's mother if you wanted. Well, at least in the case if you knew her well and the setting was not professional.

EDIT: Oh, and I have officially two Korean mothers in Korea. Both of these ladies elevated themselves to this status without asking my approval. I found it quite cool, though. These women were my former landladies while I was still a student at the SNU.

[bobbyhanlon]

my favourite for the old restaurant ajummas is 이모. they seem to love that one .
sometimes when ordering samgyeopsal a good trick was asking 이모, 3인분같은2인분 주세요 (2 portions that is more like 3) and most of the time we'd get 3 for the price of 2.

[myugen]

cool thanks for sharing ur experiences.

the case i witnessed, the girl actually used a very respectful way of speech and didnt include the person's name before addressing her 어머님. I actually thought it was her real mother, until she told me it wasnt.

[MollyBloom]

[Maneki Neko]

[samd]

[tzechuk]