Saturday, July 15, 2017

Listening exercise with transcript #11: Dad jokes revisited (feat. Mamamoo)

This week we revisit Mamamoo, because their new song Aze Gag has such wondeful references to the Korean culture. In particular, they did a live performance a few weeks ago, which I thought was absolutely wonderful, as it includes a random bit of a dad jokes in the middle (starting at 1:35).

One other thing to notice is that since the dad jokes are so old fashioned, they have elected to add the subtitles for the dad jokes in 궁서체.

See the clip below, and try to understand what the joke says. The transcript follows (after which is the translation/explanation), where D stands for "the Dude" and M stands for "Mamamoo."



D: 마마무 신곡나왔나봐, 신곡!
M: 네~
D: 야~ 나 이 무대 십년 기다렸잖니. 어?
근데, 나 뒤에서 들으니까... 아재개그 이런거 좋아하나봐?
M: 아, 네.
D: 내가 아주 기가 막힌거 하나 가르켜줄까?
잘들어. 음악의 음이 장음과 단음이 있잖아.
근데 세상에서 제일 긴음, 이게 뭐게?
ㅋㅋㅋ 참기름!
M: ...
D: 참기름, 참기름! 야! 이거 가사에 쓸래, 가사에? 어? 왜? 시.. 싫어?
M: ... 네.
D: 싫으면 시집가!

Here are the translations:
D: Mamamoo, out with the new song ("신곡" where "신" means "new" in Chinese, and "곡" means "song" in chinese)!
M: Yes~
D: Wow, I waited for this stage for ten years, huh?
I was just listening to you guys in the backstage, and... you like dad jokes?
M: Oh, yeah.
D: Can I tell you an awesome one?
Listen. You know how music has long notes ("장음," where "장" means "long" in Chinese, "음" means note) and short notes ("단음," where "단" means "short" in Chinese). What's the longest note in the world? It's "참기름 (sesame oil; explanation after translation)" lol. Sesame oil!
M: ...
D: Sesame oil, sesame oil! Hey, do you want to use this in your lyrics? Huh? Why? You don't like it?
M: ... No.
D: Well, if you don't like it, go get yourself married!

So there are two jokes here.

The first asks, what's the longest note in the world, and the answer is "참기름." In the true dad joke fashion, the word "참기름" should be re-written as "참길음" and separated as "참 길음." The word "참" means "very (a more literal translation would be "truly")," and "길음" means "long."

The clever feature of this dad joke is that musical terms denoting notes should end in "음" as that's the Chinese letter for "note." Interestingly enough, "참 길음" also ends in "음," a happy accident that makes the joke even better!

The second joke is more subtle, and it is a true dad joke in the sense that it was a popular phrase back in the 80s and 90s. When someone refuses to do something by saying "싫어 (I don't want to)!," it used to be the funny thing to say "싫으면 시집가 (If you don't like it, go get yourself married!)" Not being from this era, I'm not really sure why this was even funny, other than the fact that there's a very weak alliteration there. But I do remember being a very young child and saying this phrase to my friends, because my parents thought it was really funny!

0 comments:

Post a Comment