Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jajdude]

You have found this too. The PC room. The music and the games spewing English. You wonder, am I the only one who knows what it means, or how dumb it sounds? Or sometimes in some restaurant or coffee place, lots of it is written. Even the menu. You want a certain sandwich, say, and it's written right in front of you and the counter person, but alas your pronunciation is hard to understand. You try the Korean way of saying an English word, and finally we have communication, maybe. A while ago a girl in a sandwich shop pointed out the sandwiches they had left for sale at that time late at night. "���� ���" ..... well took me a while because doesn't sound like the "Double Herb" written next to it. Still don't know what it is anyway.

I know, this is Korea. I'm still wondering sort of what the point of all this English is when so few use it with any ability. Perhaps they're thinking, well, maybe in the future we will be able to say that stuff that is in our eyes and eyes now. But for now, doesn't it make a nice decoration?

[just because]

I have a funny story related to this.

I was in EMart one day and there was a song on by and American rapper and it kept saying these lyrics over and over.

I wanna do you doggy style. i suspect it must be Snoop.

Anyway I started laughing in the middle of EMart and was wondering if antone else on here could understand(it was pretty loud).

But I know what you mean, all this Enlgish all around but not many understands it well, makes no sense to me either.

[weatherman]

There was a weird song last year or maybe a little more off, that went something like, "di*ky, di*ky, pu*sy, pu*sy, licky, licky..." Went on and on.. kind of strange to hear that when walking shopping with kids and grandmothers all around.

[Pyongshin Sangja]

Yeah, Emart plays a lot of rap. "I want a big fat, big fat ____"

[jajdude]

Also in the stores. Went to Carrefour. Lots of French too of course. Guess it doesn't matter. Language isn't so much the key when buying groceries. Still ya wonder sometimes... can they read the product? (well with that little Korean sticker, yes) ...Ah I shouldn't be silly or arrogant. I'm a fool to even bring this topic up. In Canada there's lots of French I can easily disregard and barely understand on many products! And French is an official language there.

But God love English! Glad I could go to Taiwan or Thailand or wherever and find an English language newspaper and bookstore! And a few speakers!

We're lucky in a way or two.

[gomurr]

I remember those songs well in E-mart. I jst about died laughing when I first paid attention to it. People were staring at me and one of the workers asked me if I was ok and did I need a doctor. How do you explain the words to that kind of lyrics.

[Rhoddri]

My second day ever in Korea, I pathetically caved in on my weak attempt of quitting smoking. I went to the nearest shop and viewed all the ciggies. All of them had english names, words like 'this' and 'rich' stuck out. I proceeded to ask the adjumma 'this please' pointing at the ciggarettes (a blank expression from the adjumma)...."this" ..."this?" (as I leaned over to point at the specific brand I was requesting) .."ahhhhhh Diss su!" was the reply as she finally understood me. Hence my first experience of konglish.

Yes it's true that so much english surrounds us here, but by comparison not many people speak it. However, as my lame attempts to learn Korean fall by the wayside, I find myself leaning towards the view that: "So much Korean surrounds yet I don't speak it"

[jajdude]

Even more true, actually. Korean completely surrounds me to the point of exasperation, and I still suck at it. And I had the exact same experience with "This" years ago

[mindmetoo]

[mindmetoo]

I'm always curious about Korean ad copywriters fascination with the term "happy". Like "Happy price" or "Happy taste".

And some of the engrish on the high fashion clothing here is all about run on sentences. You see things on billboards like "Not just a style of the me but a glorious instant of clothing culture to conversation the beautiful speech like a father of a happy feeling! Rewarding and environmental!"

[Zed]

They frequently like to put 2 descrptive words on things but don't seem to realise that they should make them both adjectives or both nouns. The result is things like "Happy and Sense" or "Classy and Beauty".

[jajdude]

It actually boggles the English-speaking mind doesn't it? But this has been covered in other threads. They really don't care about making sense because it is a decoration to them, not quite a real language for the locals. But isn't it weird that in Korea, Japan, China, and no doubt many other countries there is SO MUCH of this mangled "English" on stuff. And sometimes it is the only "language" on the product! Then no one can figure it out! Another thing that gets me is how they might think about having all this in their environment. A bunch of language stuff they don't understand, like popular music and stuff written on their products. Well, in Canada we monolinguals ignore the other language, but at least we always have our own too to understand the product. Here in Korea, (or Japan or China or ....) you can buy stuff that has only English with words like "retractable" and so on. Now how many Koreans understand the word "retractable" (my guess... maybe 1 in 100)

[Korea Newfie]

I was in Carrefour last year buying bed sheets. So, naturally, I was in the bedding area, which is the near women's and children's areas. All of a sudden, The Ballad Of Chasey Lain by the Bloodhound Gang comes on. I'm frantically looking around to see any small look of recognition, but there was none. Just a bunch of women anc children, bed sheets, and filthy music. Nobody understood my laughter...