Korean Job Discussion Forums

[canada1987]

Hi Everyone,

I've Been in Korea for a couple of weeks now and I'd like to download a translator app for my ipod , mainly to help me learn but reading restaurant menus will be a plus too.
Apps are a new thing to me. I looked in the itunes store for an app and there are several free ones (which I tried, and are useless). And a decent number of apps in the $5-20 dollar range.
If anyone has any experience with these and can reccomend a good app to me or warn me about one that is a waste of money it would be much appreciated!
I need an app that if fully functional offline because I do not have regualar access to wifi and I am using an ipod touch, not an iphone.
Thanks.

[T-J]

No translator is going to give perfect translations. You're always going to get some funky results as a result of homophones and failure to infer syntax. The free translator app by Codesign works well enough.

[wishfullthinkng]

I don't think one exists that is worth any money. The "best" one from what my friends tell me is iTranslate, but it's just an app that uses google translate to do the work, and google translate is horrid at doing korean to english translations and vice versa.

The Korean language is very difficult to translate because it's very context and situation sensitive unlike English. Many Koreans also write in a continuing string without spaces after each word, especially in text messages which makes it nearly impossible for a foreigner who doesn't know hangul to read it and make any sense of it.

If you're just trying to translate a menu you'd be better off to learn how to read hangul. Learning to read hangul is wickedly easy. I always tell people that you can learn how to read hangul in one day (this is coming from someone who taught himself in just that, one day) but it will take you a lifetime to learn what exactly it is that you are reading. However, for things like a menu, if you know the pronunciation for a word like "meat" and you've learned enough hangul to sound out 고기 ("kogi" which means "meat") then you've saved yourself the effort of typing it into a machine that will give you a wrong translation 95% of the time and you've helped yourself for the next time you encounter that word.

Do yourself a favor and learn how to read Hangul because the translators available are just crap and the Korean language is just too contextual. Just my 2 cents of course.

[Slowmotion]

Those translators are terrible still, here are some from google translate:

안드로이드는 엄마보다는 아빠를 더 좋아하나봅니다. --> Android look like more a mother than a father.

Real translation:
I think Android likes my father more than my mother.


아이폰이 안드로이드보다 좋다. --> Android better than iPhone.
Real translation: "Iphone is better than Android"
LOL google bias?


바보같은 B형 여자 ---> Stupid girl hepatitis B
Real translation: (hard to translation into English) Stupid 'B blood type' girl


어이 없다 --> Hey there
(Won't recognize it as one word)
Real Translation: absurd, ridiculous


글쎄 안써있는데 9시쯤이면 끝날듯 --> Well, do not use it, which will evaporate doing cartwheels by 9
Real translation: "its not written down but it should be over by about 9 O'clock"


만두 먹고싶다 --> I want to eat ten thousand and two
Translation: I want to eat dumplings (mandu)


이제 오빠는 학생들이 구글 번역기를 이용해서 숙제를 해와도 한 눈에 알겠다 --> Now the older brother of students using Google translator of the sun, a sight I see your homework
Real Translation: Now you(오빠) can easily tell if your students are using google translator on their homework


초딩 --> Robinho (soccer player name)
Real translation: (slang) Elementary school student


촌스럽다! --> Belt does not match!
Real translation: Unsophisticated, country like, shameful for not knowing or doing something everyone else has or does.

차 빼 = away from my car
Real translation: Move your car, back out

[crescent]

[raguirre]

Yeah, Google Translate's terrible for translating actual sentences.

HOWEVER, it's incredibly useful for vocabulary and there's a little speaker icon that when you press it, it says the word in Korean. Amazing practice for pronunciation!!!