Korean Job Discussion Forums

[kathycanuck]

Hey: a coworker just blushingly said she made a mistake in English, and was very embarrassed. That's nothing, I assured her.
I was a foster parent in Canada, and one day had to call in a plumber. While he was working I went to finish some stuff on the computer in my room, so I said to my teenage foster child,"Tell the plumber if he wants me I'll be in the bedroom." She replied with a giggle, "Yeah, he is kind of cute."
Oh crap.
Any good stories to share?

[jinks]

Earlier this month I was at the local hof waiting for my friend to arrive, my roommate was already there with some of his friends. I was trying to make small talk with some non-English speaking Korean girls, after the "Happy New Year" greetings I commented that we were approaching the year of the dog. The girls didn't seem to get what I was saying, so I repeated it in a loud, telegraphic style - much to everyone's horror. Apparently, �� [dog] + �� [year] does not mean 'year of the dog', rather it means 'fukken b1tch'.

[bellum99]

Perhaps you were correct...to everyone's horror

[haywill22]

Great idea for a thread.

I know its a given, but I still can't say 18 in korean without everyone laughing.

Three years ago when my Korean vocabulary was about 12 words, I would typically eat dinner at the soju tent. It was a great place to meet people and pick up on the Korean language. As Koreans do, they initate a conversation with the typical "hello" and "you're handsome"... back then I thought it was a cultural thing so I would return the same greeting about their appearance, I was quickly corrected that eepooda(the only word I knew that described a favorable appearance) wasn't a correct adjective for a man, sal-seng-ghetta was more appropriate.

Forward to the next night: same thing happens - From a group of K dudes "hello, wow handsome guy, do you know soju and kimchi?"

I couldn't remember the word for handsome, I didn't want to say eepooda so my broken Korean inadvertently comes across: "What do you call a Korean guy, Korean guy not - pretty" They take my insult like champs and nod in agreement. Trying to back peddle in Korean I come back"no, no, I mean - Korean woman = pretty, but I can't say Korean man = pretty" Everybody looks at me like I'm a douche bag, so finally I try the analogy route: "Korean woman is to pretty as Korean man is tooo______?"
I trail this sentence with body language, signaling them to complete my sentence.

All of them are staring at their shoes and nodding and one guy finishes my analogy in sheepish voice: moesengheta. Then everybody in the whole tent including the women are nodding in agreement with my insults repeating "maja, maja, hangook namja moesenghetta" with expressions saying "not much we can do about that" .... I gave up after that.

[Qinella]

[thursdays child]

Yesterday I had this phone conversation:

me: Hey, whatcha doing?

friend: Playing with my privates in the snow.