Korean Job Discussion Forums

[chiaa]

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]

[shawner88]

It should be illegal to post signs only in Konglish!

[mindmetoo]

Ah reminds me of Quebec's Bill 101 which forbid signs in any language but French. This ruling does seem to work at cross purposes. It would seem the Korean government is pushing English fluency and trying to make Seoul as easy for English-speaking biz people to use. Now a wing of the government is claiming it causes emotional pain among Koreans who love their native tongue.

Ultimately if a nation declares it has an official language, it has the right to create laws governing commercial labeling and signs. Try to sell a product in Canada that's not bilingually labeled and see how far you get.

Of course the libertarian side of my personality says "heck if you want to put up English only signs in Korea or Spanish only signs in Miami or Chinese only signs in Richmond BC, go right on ahead." There are a lot of old timers in Miami and BC that seem to take issue with unilingual, non-English commercial signage.

[hippie]

[lastat06513]

Here's an example of the kind of people who think that English-only advertising would hurt their pride;

~ A few months ago, I was on a bus, talking to a friend on the phone and a college-aged chump tapped on my shoulder and said to be quiet. I was not going above the normal decibel that an ordinary ajushi would normally talk so I turned around and ignored him. But he started to tell his friend [in Korean] how he hated that sound of people speaking English; He said "Young-Oh mal-hae Ddong San Nae yo" (which mean "Speaking English really makes me wanna take a dump")

~ Tonight while riding home on a bus, I was talking to an ex-student of mine and some homeless looking dude started cupping his hands over his ears and wretched around as if he heard someone scratch their nails down a chalkboard or something. He started yelling and that was when the bus stopped and the driver went over and threw his can off the bus.


So, from what I'm gathering here is that its ok for Koreans to use English as the butt-end of a joke yet when they are forced to use it for something useful, they complain about how it causes mental anguish and hurts their national pride.

The lack of "Fluff" or any kind of decent deoderant in Lotte Mart, that is something to complain deeply about.


But you know what~ Wanna' hear a BIGGER joke?
~ Korea wants to be "major business hub" of Northeast Asia, that cracks me up.

[JackSarang]

I'm surprised this hasn't come up sooner. For a people that are so proud of their language and culture they really are letting their language go to crap.

I'm surprised they haven't done what France has done and goverment mandated that all new words be uniquely Korean. For instance, in France, in all goverment documents e-mail cannot be referred to as e-mail, its illegal. It must be referred to as the french word "couriel". In fact, I'm almost positive that North Korea already does this.

Its getting so bad lately that I imagine in ten years you could overhear an entire conversation in Korea and understand it because they're speaking mostly Konglish.

Like this latest idiotic craze with well being food, oh I'm sorry, I mean "Weel Bing" food.

I mean so many western things have uniquely korean words associated with them, then with others they just come up with the dumbest most retarded sounding konglish imaginable. Then there are the things that do already have Korean words but they use the konglish instead.

Is this just a question of english/konglish being "hip" and Koreans terrified of not being part of a fad?

Anyway, time to get into my Bon Duh-chee pyjamas.

[lastat06513]

The ironic part is that it already happened in other parts of the world.

I mean, when you walk down the street and you hear a couple of Nigerians or Philippinos talk, when they use English, it sounds like a completely foreign language because of all the local words incorporated into them.
I know that in PI, its now known as Togologue, but alot of English words are now in it.

I wrote this a while ago, the reason English is being used widely is because its not as complicated as Hanja to remember and English words can be written (not-so-well) in Hangeul.

God forbid that Korea adopts an Official Second Language, the NGOs will have a field day organizing a protest for it.

___
Cool~~ I figured out how to make an avitar!!!!

[chiaa]

If I recall from the paper correctly, Jeju Do's second official language is English.

Anyone remember those sign at the bus stops where they say welcome in about a dozen different languages?

Since Korean is only there once, and is not the majority, I wonder if that is illegal as well?

[Cymro]

[Pyongshin Sangja]

That's a tricky one. Suggest some effective changes. Express one English sound perfectly using Hangul.

[Hollywoodaction]

[Pyongshin Sangja]

Ya know, I would love to but the weather is lousy and I am leaving on vacation tomorrow. It's the only chance they've got, just like me and this vacation. Pray for more Hollywood Action in Athens. I need more comedy material.

[nev]

I think it's fair enough. English is becoming a very pervasive language here and everywhere. Many English words are already in the Korean language, albeit modified a little. It's not unreasonable to ask for company names and advertising to be in the native language as well as English, in my opinion.

Some countries, such as Finland, refuse to allow any foreign words into their language, and new words are created with existing Finnish words. The French have a similar law, I believe. These languages all have the latin script however, so don't need to be as defensive about a foreign script on advertising. Korea isn't refusing foreign words into their language, it's just asking for parity between the Korean and English language on public displays.

In a world where English is taking over, I can understand why some nations would want to take lengths to protect their language.

[mindmetoo]