#108. 번역체 -- Five ways Koreans can tell that you are not a native speaker

Pyeongchang Olympics are all set to begin, and the excitement is mounting (well, a lot of Koreans are still unhappy about the flag fiasco...)

The American alpine skier Lindsey Vonn shares the sentiment, and she posted on her Instagram account about how her journey was delayed, yet how she is still very excited. The Korean media reported her Instagram post as front-page news of the sports section.

This is partly due to her success as an alpine skier, but mostly because she used a Korean phrase in her Instagram post. She wrote:

"나는 너무 흥분 돼." (I am so excited.)

The Korean media must have loved the fact that she went through the trouble of using Google Translate to post this short phrase, and the headlines reflect this.

The headline says: "Lindsey Vonn arrives in Korea, writes in Korean "I am so excited""

Wait, you might say. How do you know that she used Google Translate? Are you saying this because she's white?

Interestingly enough, I am not being a racist. I know that she is nowhere near being a native speaker, because she used the kind of Korean that the Koreans call "번역체." This word is a composition of two words: "번역" and "체." The word "번역" just means "translation."

The word "체," meaning "body" in Hanja, is a bit more complicated. It can be used to describe the form of anything related to a language. For example, it can describe physical attributes of letters. The font of your letters are called "글씨체" and cursive fonts are called "필기체." At the very beginning of this blog, I also talked about a specific Korean font called "궁서체," which refers to the font traditionally used within the palace. The font with which you write gives some character to the sentence itself -- in English, the big loopy and girly writings with hearts to dot your i's have a completely different character from Times New Roman, with which you write your college reports.

Here are some basic Korean fonts. From top to bottom, rounded font, palatial calligraphy font, standout font, clear gothic font, and basic font.

However, in modern Korean slang, it can also refer to the mood of the sentences. The most widely used example of this is the word "번역체," where people decide that certain sentences feel so "off" that they must have come badly translating another language. While the actual written letters have no physical characteristics, the overall mood of the sentence gives the sentence a character.

What Lindsey Vonn wrote is a clear example of "영어 번역체" (English-translated mood). While the correct translation of the word "excitement" is indeed "흥분," for lack of a better word in the Korean language, Koreans generally use the word "흥분" to mean "aroused." (As of recent, some Koreans use it to mean "excited" but this is an influence of Koreans who have become more fluent in English!) So when I Googled the phrase "흥분돼" I got a mix of Korean language lessons (where English speakers want to translate the phrase "I am excited"), and porn. Fun stuff.

Then there are other elements in Vonn's writing that seem slightly off to a native Korean. The use of "는" in "나는" seems wrong (I'd have suppressed it), and her spacing in "흥분 돼" seems off. While I could not tell you exactly why it is grammatically wrong, I just know that it doesn't sound right. And from experience (of having read many English sentences translated through Google translate), I know that her sentence has been auto-translated.

If it were a native Korean writing this sentence, she probably would have said something along the lines of:

"나 올림픽이 정말 기대돼." (I am really looking forward to the Olympics.)

or

"진짜 신난다." (I'm feeling the fun.)

 While these are not the exact translates of the sentence "I'm excited," the whole point is that there is no exact translation of this sentence in Korean, so any attempt at an exact translation will make it sound awkward. Young Koreans are beginning to adopt this phrase, by saying things like

 "나 지금 흥분함" (I'm excited right now)

but in order to use it in a non-awkward manner, you would need a complete mastery of the language, where you don't want to follow all rules of grammar, but you still want to follow enough. This is a subtle nuance issue that most learners will struggle with, as the 번역체 sentences are still mostly grammatically correct!

So, here are a few examples of 번역체 sentences that you could keep in mind. I am covering the ones coming from English, but many language-specific examples exist, and Koreans can generally tell apart the ones coming from English, Japanese, or Chinese.

1. Pay attention to the order of your phrases.

English and Korean have very different order of words. A silly 번역체 would be:

"나는 간다, 학교에." (I am going to school.)

While each word matches up the English counterpart, the natural Korean grammar would say "나는 학교에 간다." So if the ordering of your words are awkward, the Koreans can usually tell that you are not a native speaker. A more complicated example might be:

"와서 나를 봐 바쁘지 않으면" (Come see me when you are not busy.) 

The more natural translation is: "바쁘지 않을 때 들러."

2. Suppress your pronouns. 

Unlike the English language, Korean doesn't need a lot of pronouns, and they tend to be suppressed whenever it is clear from context. For example, the sentence "I love you" does not get translated in Korean as "나는 너를 사랑한다," which is definitely an example of 번역체. It is enough to say:

"사랑해."

It should be clear from context whether this sentence is an affirmation of love, or if you simply adore Korean fried chicken. Similarly, you don't want to translate "They're coming!" as "그들이 오고있어!" It is enough to simply say:

"온다!" 

3. Be more specific with your pronouns.

This sounds contradictory to point 2, but this rule covers a completely different set of cases. If the context is clear, you should suppress your pronouns. But suppose that you are about to open the windows in the classroom, and your friend happens to know that the teacher is allergic and he really hates it. Then she might tell you, "He really doesn't like the windows open."

In this case, the easiest Korean translation might be "그는 창문을 여는것을 좋아하지 않아." However, the usage of non-specific pronouns such as 그, 그녀, or 그것 is very rare in Korean. Instead, saying:

"선생님은 창문을 여는것을 좋아하시지 않아"

is a much better translation.

4. Learn the Korean equivalent of the English idioms (sometimes they don't exist).

You should think twice when an English sentence does not serve its literal purpose. For example, think about the sentence:

"Seulgi is nicer than you think, if you ask me."

While a literal translation might be: "만약 나에게 물어본다면, 슬기는 네가 생각하는것보다 착해," the phrase "if you ask me" does not literally mean that the listener asked the speaker her opinion about Seulgi. The speaker is using this phrase to emphasize the fact that she is stating an opinion. Therefore, it is unreasonable to expect that Korean would have a literal counterpart to this English expression. A better translation is:

"내생각엔 슬기는 네가 생각하는것보다 착해." (I think Seulgi is nicer than you think.)

Other expressions that sound awkward when translated directly into Korean include:

- "please" (for example, "Can you please help me" doesn't translate to "나를 제발 도와줄래?"  but rather "도와줄수 있어?")
-  "I say": use "내 생각엔," not "내가 말하길."
- "Give me a break": use "그만좀 해" and not "휴식을 줘."
- "take into account": use "고려하다" or "염두에 두다."
- "you know": use "있잖아."
- "I'm excited": use "정말 기대돼" (note the suppressed pronoun.)

5. "Oh" translates to a variety of different words in Korean.

While it is not wrong to translate "oh" into "오" in Korean, as soon as this word is inserted into a sentence, it smells strongly of a 번역체 sentence. In general, the better translation is "아," but it depends on the purpose of "oh" in the sentence.

If it precedes a revelation ("Oh, you live here too?") or an afterthought ("Oh, don't forget to buy some apples!"), then the Korean translation uses "아." For example, the two above sentences become:

"아, 여기 사시네요?" (Oh, you live here too? -- note the suppressed pronoun of "you")

and

"아, 사과 사는거 잊지마!" (Oh, don't forget to buy some apples.)

If it denotes a mild surprise ("Oh, is that right?") you can use "아", as well as "어" or "어라." So you can translate this sentence to:

"아, 진짜?" or "어라, 진짜야?" etc.

If "oh" is used as lamentation ("Oh no!") then you can use "아아," such as:

"아아, 안돼!!"

And above all, "Oh my god" does not translate to "오, 신이시여." Koreans are more likely to resort to profanity, but the most (politically) correct translation might be:

"아이구, 맙소사." 

Oh my god, indeed!

Of course, all of these things don't operate according to a well-defined set of rules, and most Koreans avoid these usages by the "ear test" -- they just don't sound quite right. The best way to avoid making these mistakes is just to expose yourself to more Korean, and get used to the way Korean sentences are constructed.

However, I also want to emphasize that the Koreans love it when foreigners speak Korean. I think the foreigners, especially anglophones, do not really understand just how happy it makes the Koreans to hear a foreigner speak Korean. Learning Korean generally does not advance your career except in very specific niches (although speaking more popular languages such as English, Spanish, French, or German probably will!) and so knowing any amount of Korean really demonstrates your interest in the Korean culture. So, you should continue to learn and speak Korean, whether you make mistakes or not -- it is flattery of the highest form to the Koreans. I mean, just look at how Lindsey Vonn made the headlines with just one Korean sentence!

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#107. 좆만하다, 좆밥 -- You couldn't be any more irrelevant

Here is a word that shows the viciousness of the Korean internet users.

Let's start with the word "좆," which I explained in a previous post; in short, it is a vulgar slang for "penis," and it is used in several expressions that are meant for insult, or for venting one's frustration. The word I want to talk about in this post is also based on the word "좆," but it is a bit more insult-like than just saying "좆같다 (despite the vulgarity, it mostly just means "it sucks")"

I love puppies!

Say that you are arguing with a user online about a topic (in the Korean internet lingo, we say that you're engaged in a "키보드배틀," or that you are "키배뜬다".) During the exchange, it becomes clear to you that the other user has no idea what he is talking about. Perhaps you are arguing about the best computer specifications to play some game, and it is clear that the other user only has beginner's level equipment.

One way to insult him is to say

"좆만한 새끼야, 까불지 마" (Don't brag, you baby.)

"까불다" is a verb that means to frolic to draw attention, or be overly cheery and loud. It is used to describe the class clowns, or a little child cheerfully and loudly showing off some random skill that he learned from his friends. It can just be a positive quality (focusing on the cheery and outgoing part of the personality) or it can be a negative quality (focusing on the fact that the person likes to be in the centre of attention, regardless of whether they deserve it or not).

"좆만하다" means that you believe that your listener is about as big as a penis (and the underlying assumption is, of course, that the penis in question is tiny!) So by drawing this comparison, you are implying that the listener only has a small bit of experience, and that they are no more than a baby and a newbie. (As an aside, "-만하다" is a comparison in size; "사과만하다" means "as big as an apple," etc.)

But then you can go one level higher, and tell him:

"좆밥같은 새끼가 어디서 까불어?" (Look where you're bragging, you irrelevant sh*t!)

The insult is in the word "좆밥." We already know that the letter "좆" means "penis." From the phrase "좆밥같은," you can tell that the above sentence is comparing your opponent in your keyboard battle to a penis. (Another aside, "-같은" is a comparison in quality; "사과같다" means "looks/feels like an apple")

However, there is so much more than that to this insult.

The letter "밥" has many meanings; while its primary meaning is "boiled rice," this is not what it means in this case. The letter "밥" also means "crumbs," especially the residue left after working on some material with tools. So, in Korean, "sawdust" is "톱밥," literally "saw crumbs."

Other words that use this suffix are "귓밥" (ear crumbs, i.e. earwax; this is actually not correct according to the dictionary -- it should mean earlobes, but Koreans use it to mean earwax anyway) and "실밥" (the threads forming the stitches after an injury).

So what in the world is "좆밥"? Koreans use it to mean the residue left on the folds of your penis when you don't wash it carefully. Disgusting, I know. So you are basically insulting your opponent by saying that they are so irrelevant, and that they are more or less equivalent to the residue on your penis.

The skater Adelina Sotnikova is often referred to as "형광나방," or "fluorescent moth" among the Koreans.

So, for example, the Koreans still hate the figure skater Adelina Sotnikova, because they believe that she stole the gold medal that rightfully belongs to Kim Yuna (and all things considered, Kim Yuna has much better records than Adelina Sotnikova). So they might say:

"김연아 좆밥새끼가 까부네." (That b*tch who is about as relevant as the residue on Kim Yuna's penis (?!?!?!) is bragging again.)

It sounds awkward when you think about its meaning, since Kim Yuna surely doesn't have a penis! Yet this phrase does get used, because the Koreans don't think carefully about the etymology of the insult words; they know that "좆밥" means "not even worthy of comparison" but they rarely think about what the word actually means.

This is possibly one of the reasons why Korean profanity tends to be a lot more aggressive and extreme compared to the English profanity. While most of the anglophone profanity retain their meaning, the Korean profanity does not; as soon as a word becomes popular, people usually become desensitized to the actual meaning behind the words, and they are off to find the next exciting word soon afterwards.

If you wanted to be slightly less vulgar while conveying the same meaning, you can say instead:

"김연아 발톱의 때만도 못한게 까부네" (That b*tch who is less relevant than the residue on Kim Yuna's toenail residues is bragging again.)

While conveying approximately the same idea, this word uses words from the dictionary, and is much less of a slang.

In any case, I would refrain from using this word in real life, but if you ever engage in a keyboard battle, go ahead and use it, by all means! It is definitely an insult, but not the one that the listener would take very seriously. You might occasionally see your very close male friends use it on each other (if you are male), but I would not want to be the one to initiate the usage of this word, especially if you are not familiar with the Korean words and their nuances.

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#106. 응/ㅇㅇ/웅 -- How to say "yes" without being offensive

The Korean language has countless number of conjugations that you can apply to any verb. These conjugations do not change according to the subject; rather, the change of these conjugations reflect the change of mood in the sentence. For example, there are many ways to translate "Eat this" using the informal tone:

"이거 먹어" (Eat this; imperative)

"이거 먹어봐." (Try this; strongly suggestive)

"이거 먹어볼래?" (Do you want to try this?; weakly suggestive)

"이거 먹어줘." (Please eat this; strong request)

"이거 먹어줄 수 있어?" (Could you eat this for me?; weak request)

"이거 혹시 먹어줄 수 있어?" (Could you possibly eat this for me?; careful weak request)

"이거 혹시 먹어봐줄 수 있어?" (Could you possibly try eating this for me?; very careful weak request) 

Very small changes to the verb can completely change the meaning of a sentence. This makes the Korean language very ambiguous; even if what someone said sounded rude, you have to wonder whether they actually meant to be rude, or if they misspoke. This also makes the Koreans hyper-aware of nuance of the language.

In Korean, we call this "어감," or the feeling ("감," as in "감정 emotion" or "예감 premonition") of the words ("어," as in "단어 word" or "영어 English language"). It is very important to choose the words that convey the right "어감." One wrong conjugation, and you might inadvertently offend the listener. As such, we have many proverbs that describe the importance of nuance.

"말 한 마디가 천냥빚을 갚는다." (One phrase can repay the loan of a thousand gold coins; around $400k USD, if you must know!)

Another proverb goes:

"아 다르고 어 다르다." ("아" is different from "어"; the smallest things make a difference in nuance.)

This one is, of course, harder to translate. It is simply saying that while the two korean vowels "ㅏ" and "ㅓ" are very similar in looks and sounds, depending on where you apply it, it can make a difference. For example, "이거 먹어" and "이거 먹어봐줄수 있어?" have very different 어감 to the listener. While the first is an order, the second conveys that the speaker respects my wishes, and that the speaker is afraid of offending me with this (probably innocuous) request.

Koreans are exposed to these subtle nuances from birth; so these two requests are likely to bring out very different reactions in Koreans, much more so than the Westerners. And so the Koreans often obsess over what seems like a useless point.

Today, I was browsing the Korean online forum "Pann," whose users are primarily schoolgirls in their teens (but women of all ages frequent this website). There, I saw an amazing comment by one of the users, who was agonizing over how to answer in the affirmative to friends on Kakaotalk (the Korean version of texting.) Here is her text:

She writes,

"Everyone, saying "응" feels like I'm standoffish or not friendly enough, and "엉" sounds like I'm not putting enough thought into it. Is it just me? I'm not so sure. Then "웅" sounds like I'm trying to be cute, "앙" is even worse, and "옹" is Sungwoo. Is "응응" the best...?"

Here, "응," "엉," "웅," "앙," "옹," and "응응" are just some of the different ways the Koreans say "yes" when texting. Over time, each of these words, while meaning exactly the same thing, gained nuances (or 어감) of their own. And now the Koreans must pay attention to what subtle undertone they are conveying besides saying "yes."

While saying "응" is grammatically the most correct, she fears that this feels too formal and standoffish; because it is too correct, it is not giving off enough of the friendly vibe.

"엉" indeed gives off the vibe of not paying enough attention into the conversation. It used to be the case that a lot of men would respond "어" in order to say "yes," and when they didn't have much else to say. In conforming with the international stereotype that men are bad at texting, the male version of "yes" also got the nuance that not enough attention is being given to the conversation at hand. Although one can improve it a little by adding the extra "ㅇ," it feels like an afterthought after you have already responded with the "male yes."

As an aside, an even worse way to say "yes" is "ㅇㅇ." A lot of Korean males will use this to say "yes" to their annoying little sisters, or very close male friends, for example! And what a terrible nuance; they can't even be bothered to move their hands away from the keyboard to press different keys.

"웅" and "앙" are mostly used by women, when they are trying to say "yes" to their boyfriends, in an effort to show aegyo. So it does seem a little bit too much to be using this to your female friends!

And then she makes a tiny joke that "옹" (which you could use to say "yes" but is not super common) is "Sungwoo" -- "옹성우" is a Korean celebrity who is currently a member of the boy band Wanna One. He is known for his shockingly good looks, and his extremely unique last name "Ong." Because of his popularity, the syllable "옹" will evoke in the minds of the listeners the singer Ong Sungwoo -- especially if the listener is a teenage girl!

This man shocked the nation with his good looks in the reality program Produce 101 Season 2; he was selected to be in the boy band by placing in the top 11 out of 101 contestants.

Finally, she settles for "응응." Enough grammar has been broken that she is not putting unnecessary distance between herself and the lucky recipient of her thoughtful "yes"; she is not trying too hard to be cute, and since she wrote TWO letters for a simple "yes," she is clearly engaged in the exchange!

Such is the stress of being a native Korean speaker -- for a Korean, nuance is everything.

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#105. 달님, 재앙 -- Current Korean political climate, North Korea, and the Olympics

Have you ever tried to eat the outer part of old celery stalks?

As the celery ages, the fibres become tough, and chewing doesn't do anything to make them any more palatable. Unless you toss them in a huge pot and boil them for hours, there is nothing you can do to make it delicious.

You can imagine that there are other things that are even tougher to eat. For example, imagine you are trying to cook cornstalk, or barks of trees. They would be tough, chewy, and rubbery.

South Koreans would sometimes steep tree bark into a cup of tea; North Koreans might actually eat these tough-looking things!

Koreans call this state of toughness "억세다." It is an adjective describing the toughness and hardness of material; unlike young shoots, willow tree, or fabric, which bend easily to the touch, the objects that are tough (or, "억센 물건들" in Korean) have the quality of resilience, and do not change easily from the outside force. For example, you can say:

"셀러리 줄기는 빨리 먹지 않으면 억세져." (The celery stalks become tough and chewy if you don't eat them soon.)

In this case, there is no nuance to this word other than the neutral one used to describe some property. However, you can describe someone who doesn't bend to outside pressure by using this word. While I would say that the nuance of this word is slightly negative in this case, it can be used in a positive context, like the example below:

"정아는 성격이 억세서 마음먹은 일은 꼭 이뤄내." (Jung-ah is tough and resilient, so she always gets things done that she intended to do.)

 Of course, some listeners would detect a subtle undertone of criticism, about how her personality is rather too strong (definitely not a desired trait in the Korean society!)

Nonetheless, the word "억세다" is often used by the South Koreans to describe the North Koreans. Due to the lack of food and other resources, the North Koreans are forced to be tough and resilient; otherwise they would have died from starvation already. When the food situation is dire, they resort to eating things like barks of trees (which are "억세다" themselves); it seems socially acceptable to commit small acts of crime such as petty theft (especially if it is against the government officials), and unfortunately, their sense of morals are not quite at the level of that of the South Koreans.

As you can see, natural resources are scarce in North Korea; between the government needing trees and other things, and the North Koreans eating whatever they can find, most of their mountains are bald. South Koreans call this "민둥산," literally "bald mountain."

Combined with the long years of separation between the two nations (this July marks 65 years since the truce), the young South Koreans are actually apprehensive about trying to unify the two countries. Although many of them have long-lost relatives in Korea, it is a tall order to try to feel that you are connected to someone that you don't even know exists -- I am one of them; my paternal grandfather is from Hwanghae Province in North Korea, although he moved to Seoul before the Korean war. He had siblings in the Hwanghae Province, although whether they married and had children, I have absolutely no clue. So, I might have cousins in North Korea, but so what?

When you're on the verge of starvation, anything can be fair game. Poverty in North Korea is heartbreaking.

In fact, I feel a little more negative than indifference. Suppose that the two Koreas decided to unite. It might happen that one day, some North Koreans might show up at my doorstep. Likely they don't own anything, they are very poor, and they might have been brought up thinking that stealing is more or less OK (as it might be necessary to survive). And because we're related by blood, they might be expecting me to take care of them (that would be the proper thing to do according to Confucianism.) As heartless as it might sound, I am not OK with this idea. Furthermore, our more-or-less orderly South Korean society would be flooded with these 억센 North Koreans who are used to doing whatever they can to survive. It could be a disaster in terms of our economy, security, and social stability.

This makes politics a little bit complicated in Korea. While many young people (myself included) tend to lean towards the left in the political spectrum, in Korea, if you lean too much to the left, you land right on the communism side, which is a real possibility!

Currently, our president Moon Jae-In (문재인) is left-leaning in the political spectrum, whereas the previous president Park Geun-Hye (박근혜) was right-leaning. This means that ever since the power change, there has been a drastic change in our attitude towards the North.

Choi Soon-Sil (left) and Park Geun-Hye (right)

Park Geun-Hye took a very strict approach to North Korea, with minimal aids ($337 million USD, compared to $4.36 billion USD during president Roh Moo-Hyun (노무현), who was the last left-leaning president before Moon), and as far as I can tell, did not give into any demands by the North that she deemed unreasonable, which lead to a few tense situations. (Ironically, she still wanted to unify the two Koreas; with the approach she was taking, I have no idea how she would have accomplished this -- perhaps she wanted the Kim Dynasty to collapse, and the South would just absorb the North.)

The current president Moon Jae-In

Moon Jae-In is taking a completely different approach, by trying to invite North Korea to participate in conversations, and to interact with other countries. While he is barely eight months into his presidency, and we will have to wait and see what he accomplishes, one of his achievements so far was to dissolve the tension between the US and North Korea, and to convince North Korea to participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics, which is being hosted in Pyeongchang, South Korea. While the figures won't be available, I imagine that the aid towards North Korea will again increase, compared to Park's times.

Ironically, this achievement threw Korea into a huge political turmoil.

Moon became the president under overwhelming support by the Koreans, whether they were fundamentally on the left or right wing, because of the scandal involving Park's impeachment (mostly due to the fact that she was being unofficially advised by Choi Soon-Sil, who is the daughter of a shaman). At the time of his inauguration, he was supported by nearly 80% of the Koreans in his political endeavors, and even until a few months ago, his approval rating was in the mid-70% range.

With his unique situation involving the spectacular failure of the previous president, his campaign, and also his good looks, he gained quite a following (think of the Korean version of the popular Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau!) leading to the nickname "idol president." His strongest supporters call him by various nicknames, "달님 (the moon-god, because of his last name "Moon")," and "이니 (Innie, using the last syllable of his first name; kind of like Lexie for Alexandra)."

When he first became the president, you would often see comments throwing huge support behind him, such as:

"우리 이니 하고싶은거 다 해" (Our dearst Innie, do everything that you want to do.)

Or

"달님이 계셔서 든든합니다" (Because we have our moon-god, we feel protected.) 

While exaggerated, it was that much of a relief to get rid of our previous president, and her shaman advisor.

Unfortunately, Moon's approval rating has dropped to around 58% in the past few days, and it has something to do with his approach to North Korea. And it came from a seemingly innocuous move involving North Korea and the Olympics.

A few days into 2018, North Korea announced that they are open for conversations with the South, and South Korea took this offer. At this meeting, it was agreed that North Korea would participate in the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics. The two Koreas would make their entrance as a single team (meaning that neither the South or the North Korean flags would be used; instead, they would use the 한반도기, the Korean peninsula flag.) Furthermore, while the two Koreas would compete mostly separately, they would form a single team for women's ice hockey.

This threw many Koreans into rage and disappointment.

This is Dokdo. Although it is a tiny island, it comes with a large amount of surrounding water, hence the dispute with Japan.

First of all, news broke that the 한반도기 that the two Koreas would use at entrance did not include 독도 (Dokdo), the disputed island territory in the East Sea between South Korea and Japan. Given that most Koreans feel animosity against the Japanese for their occupation (my grandmother, who lived through Japanese occupation and the Korean war, says that the Japanese were a million times worse than the North Koreans) this territorial dispute is a huge deal to many Koreans. To make matters worse, a Japanese news outlet has remarked that the flag does not include 독도, therefore the Koreans are giving up their claim on the island. Koreans were enraged at this; the would much rather just see the South Korean flag at the Olympics. The Korean government recently confirmed that the flag does not include Dokdo, as it doesn't make sense to add every island to the flag.

When the government confirmed that there was no Dokdo in the Korean Peninsula flag, the netizens went and found a photo of the flag, held by the unified Korean team at the Torino Olympics in 2006. Notice that this flag depicts Dokdo, which led to further criticism for the Moon administration.

Secondly, Koreans feared that by forming a single team for women's hockey, the South Korean hockey players would get less ice time, since the North Koreans need to play on ice. The young Koreans were especially upset at this; Korean society is lacking some transparency, as the children of high-ranking officials are sometimes mysteriously excluded from military duties, or they get into a better university than they deserve, like the case of Chung Yoo-Ra, the daughter of Choi Soon-Sil. They hoped for a more transparent society under Moon's presidency, but instead, he was bringing politics into the Olympics, and took away the opportunity from the Korean hockey players who worked hard for their spots on the Olympics team.

The unified women's hockey team.

Furthermore, one of the ministers in Moon's administration made the mistake of saying that "the unified team doesn't matter; they're not in the range for a medal anyway." The youths of Korea, who hope for fair opportunities and rewards commensurate with the efforts that you put in, were enraged. At least one hockey player has publicly spoken out against it, saying that she does not understand how the government believes that they are not taking opportunities away from the South Korean players, as every minute on ice counts. Her post more or less confirmed that the South Korean hockey players are not happy that they became the scapegoat for a political agenda.

Because of this, Moon also gained some negative nicknames. Some are calling him "문재앙" (Disaster Moon, because the word "재앙" meaning disaster is very similar to his name "재인.") For similar reasons, some are calling him "문죄인" (Sinner Moon). There seems to be a sizable (and possibly growing) Korean population that believe that he is too friendly towards North Korea, and that one day, he might sell out to North Korea. Some are critical towards the staunch supporters of Moon, and started calling them "문슬람" (Moom-slam, coming from Moon+Islam; Koreans tend to be very liberal with using racial slurs.)

An article that I read today gives some numbers to this.

55.8% of the Koreans believe that having North Korea participate in the Olympics will contribute to its success, whereas 42.9% believe that this will not help.

56.7% of the Koreans believe that this move will help improve the relationship between the two Koreas; 41.9% of the Koreans believe that this will not help.

37.7% of the Koreans believe that the participation of North Korea in the 2018 Olympics is an embodiment of the spirit of the Olympics.

51.0% of the Koreans felt positively towards using the Korean peninsula flag, while 47.4% of the Koreans were against using the Korean peninsula flag.

58.7% of the Koreans are against forming a single women's ice hockey team.

88.2% of the Koreans feel that unification of two Koreas in unnecessary; they prefer to have two Koreas, and just maintain the peace. Only 9.8% of the Koreans felt that Korea should take active steps towards reunification.

73.2% of the Koreans felt that while the North Koreans are of the same ethnicity, North Korea is a separate entity. 25.2% of the Koreans felt that North Korea is the same country as South Korea.


This feels like a tricky situation; I can understand where both sides are coming from, and I hope that they will come to some kind of an understanding. I've often felt that the Korean politics tend to be extremely polarized (probably because of North Korea), so this may just be one of these instances that highlight this. In any case, do keep an eye on the political situation, as it really is very fascinating how everything changes so drastically (even more than the Obama-Trump transition, I would say!) with the change of power. I wish all my best for Korea.

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#104. A trilingual Korean joke (Hanja 3)

I saw the following photo (or 짤, if you are fluent in Korean internet language) while browsing a Korean website. The poster of this image claims that this is a useful image to download onto your phone, and send it to whoever you are texting at an appropriate moment. Can you guess when you are supposed to send this photo? (answer below the image)

The answer is that you send this photo when someone is making excuses. To understand why, you need to be trilingual, amazingly.

The word "핑계" matches up with the background photo, which depicts a pink rooster. The letter "핑" comes from the English word "pink (핑크 in Korean)," and just taking the first letter from it. And the letter "계" comes from the Hanja meaning "chicken." As far as I am aware, the letter "계" does not refer to either the male rooster or the female hen.

The full name of this Hanja is 닭 계. For an explanation of how Hanja works, see my first post on it!

This Hanja appears often enough in the Korean language that the Koreans would relate the letter "계" to a chicken; I am not sure if I would have recognized this Hanja if someone just showed it to me, however. Some Korean words that use this Hanja letter 닭 계 include:

- 계란 (literally, an egg of a chicken -- so it would be wrong to use this word for an ostrich egg, for example!)

- 삼계탕 (Samgyetang, a Korean chicken stew, where you boil a whole chicken with various roots believed to be very good for your health)

- 군계일학 (one crane among a group of chickens; this word is used to denote someone who is way above everyone else in a group)

So, a "핑계" could mean a pink chicken, because of this clever wordplay using Hanja. Of course, this is just slang, and a fairly minor one at that, almost like an English pun. The prevalent meaning of "핑계" that you can find in a dictionary is "excuses."

The next animal is fairly self-explanatory: a "돼지" is a pig. In this case, however, the Koreans noticed that "돼지" sounds almost like "대지," which is difficult to translate alone in English. The point of this substitution is that the above phrase becomes "핑계 대지 마," which means "don't make excuses." The word "대지," coming from the verb "대다 (to give, tell, or apply things such as excuses)," roughly corresponds to "make" in the above sentence.

And the final animal, which is a horse, comes with a single letter "마." This is another Hanja!

This Hanja, which you would learn sometime in elementary school in Korea, has the full name of 말 마. So it means a horse (말), but it would be read as the letter "마" in Korean. Some Korean words that include this Hanja are:

- 마굿간: a stable (for horses)

- 출마: to leave on a horse; however, nowadays, it means to become a candidate for an election, as all government officials going to work would have been riding their horses back in the olden days.

- 애마: beloved horse (along with the Hanja 사랑 애, meaning love); however, nowadays, this is a slang referring to your car. This slang has been used across all generations!

Anyway, putting all of these three photos together, we get:

"핑계 돼지 마" (pink chicken, pig, horse),

  which sounds nearly identical to

"핑계 대지 마" (don't make any excuses).

So, by the virtue of the fact that most Koreans will understand this short photo that incorporates all three languages (Korean, English, and Chinese/Hanja), the above photo becomes a witty internet .jpg file to use among the Koreans! Having spent a lot of my life in notoriously monolingual countries, I am occasionally blown away by just how non-monolingual the Koreans can be!

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#103. 대나무숲 -- Tell me your secrets

It must be human nature to want to talk about your deepest secrets. Relationship troubles, secret crushes, and inner turmoil. Some of us pour our hearts out to our closest friends, some of us to our dear diaries. Yet some others, wanting impartial feedback and advice, turn to anonymous online forums. Whatever your method of choice may be, there is the feeling of relief and catharsis after having gotten something off your chest.

Koreans are no exception to this rule, and this is well-documented in our history.

There was a king in Unified Silla (remember that the three kingdoms were unified thanks to the efforts of the General 김유신) named 경문왕 (King Gyeongmoon). While he is not a notable king in terms of politics or military tactics, he leaves behind many mysterious legends. One says that whenever he slept, hundreds of snakes appeared out of nowhere and formed a blanket across his body. When his surprised servants tried to chase them away, the king stopped them, telling them that he couldn't sleep as well without the snakes. Another says that he is the father of 궁예, whose terrible reign led to the downfall of Unified Silla and to the establishment of the Koryo Kingdom (고려).

 But the most popular story of all says that 경문왕 developed very long ears shortly after becoming king, like those of a donkey. Even circa 850, people were insecure of their appearances, it seems, and this was a very well-guarded secret, as the king never took off his crown-hat.

Really?

 Even the servants and his wives didn't know about it, and the only one who knew was his hat-maker, as he had to take off his crown-hat to get his measurements taken when it was time for a new hat.

For what it's worth, I always imagined that his hat was slightly bigger than his actual size, so that he could stick his ears into the hat!

While the poor hat-maker tried his best to keep this a secret, legend has it that he started getting sicker and sicker from not being able to get this secret off his chest.  Eventually unable to bear it any longer, he went to a bamboo forest (which was fairly common in Korea) nearby, and yelled out into the forest his deepest secret:

"임금님 귀는 당나귀 귀!" (The ears of our king (임금님) are donkey (당나귀) ears!)

Bamboo groves are usually fairly dense, and uninhabited.

But ever since days, whenever the winds rustled through the leaves, it seemed to the listeners that the leaves were whispering the secrets of the king, saying that "임금님 귀는 당나귀 귀." So the rumours spread, and eventually even made it into history books of the Unified Silla era! It is said that eventually the king got wind of it, and ordered to have all of the bamboo cut down. The bamboo grove was replaced by small berry bushes, after which they only whispered "임금님 귀는 길다!" (The ears of our king are long).

Anyway, this story is so famous among the Korean public that the phrase "대나무 숲" (bamboo forest/bamboo grove) almost always evokes this story. Furthermore, the need to speak your mind hasn't decreased at all in the past 1200 years since Unified Silla, so the Korean internet users have created a safe space to whisper your secrets to, much akin to the bamboo groves from the days of Unified Silla.

In the Western world, the easiest thing to do would be to create a throwaway account and talk about your troubles online; however, in Korea, most account creation requires some form of an ID; they usually ask for your 주민등록번호 (resident registration number) which is a form of your government ID, or your cell phone number. So it hardly feels like a safe space to spell out all of your secrets.

So, the Korean alternative works like this. Some page (whether it be a Facebook page, a Twitter account, or a separate website) is created, along with an email address to which you can send your secrets to. When the creator/moderator of the webpage receives your email, your email is posted to the webpage, to which people can react or comment.

The most famous bamboo grove (대나무숲) belongs to the prestigious universities; for example, here is a post from the SNU Bamboo Grove (SNU is Seoul National University; possibly the most prestigious university in Korea):

January 1st, oppa (in this context, boyfriend who was older than the poster) wished me a lot of happiness and luck. January 2nd, oppa dumped me.

People seem to be interested in these university-level 대나무숲, because of several reasons. First, most internet-savvy people belong in this generation; they are either still in university, or university is a recent memory. Secondly, many Koreans have fantasies about the students in these elite universities; it is interesting to see that even an SNU student deals with the same everyday problems as the rest of us. Finally, these well-educated students tend to be more eloquent in their writing, and more interesting posts show up in these bamboo groves of the prestigious universities.

Aaaah, Bamboo Grove! I accidentally accessed Instagram with my boyfriend's phone! I opened my Pandora's Box... I knew that he [used Instagram] often... As I tried to access my own account by searching, I saw that his search history had "Sextagram," "hot body,"... etc.  He followed a lot of accounts that post hot body pictures... It's not like he's contacting them privately, so I'm trying to ignore it, but I can't... Is this common? It's not that common... is it?

I enjoy accessing these 대나무숲 every once in a while. Koreans tend to be extremely polite; I have pretty much never met a Korean who would say rude or risqué things to my face. So it is nice to know that even the Koreans think about the same things that I do. Also, I feel that the writings in these bamboo groves are very representative of the everyday Korean language, talking about mundane things. It's a way for me to keep current on the language trend of an average Korean, while getting my gossip fix of the day! For those who are interested, here is the link to the SNU Bamboo Grove. You can access many others via Google, of course!

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#102. 병림픽 -- Battle of idiots

As a child living in South Korea, I was perpetually afraid of the Korean War II. I used to cry at night worried that North Korea will attack South Korea overnight, and that my family would be caught in the middle of it all without any preparations (this is how the first Korean war started -- North Korea invaded South Korea at 4am on June 25, 1950, and South Korea was not prepared for it at all.)

It also didn't help that instead of fire drills, schools used to have air strike drills. We were to hide under our desks, while the loudspeaker would announce possible scenarios about where the North Korean soldiers were, and what we were to do in these situations. Even as a young kid, I was pretty sure that hiding under our desks wasn't going to save us.

We used to call it "공습경보 훈련," and I guess Koreans still do this! (also effective for earthquakes, etc.)

In a sense, the recent events brought back those nightmares for me. While I was immensely relieved that my immediate family and I no longer live in Korea, I was extremely concerned and terrified about my extended family and friends, and all the other innocent Koreans who would be caught between the two nuclear powers -- North Korea and the United States.

But this time, it was frustrating to watch. As someone who really didn't want a war to break out, the exchange between Trump and Kim was terrifying to watch. Trump calls Kim a "Rocket Man," and Kim in turn condemns Trump to death. All the while, they are threatening to push the button. This may have been based in some politics, but to me, it felt stupid and reckless. And one comment I saw online deeply resonated with me. This Korean internet user wrote on one of the US/North Korea articles:

"병림픽이 따로 없네."

Here, "따로 없네" literally means "there is no other." So this above phrase says that there is no other "병림픽," or that whatever is going on between the US and North Korea is the very definition of "병림픽."

So let me explain the word "병림픽." I am normally offended by this word, which is a combination of the Korean insult "병신" and the English word "Olympics" (in Korean, the "s" in "Olympics" somehow got dropped, and Koreans write it as just "올림픽.")

Now, the word "병신" is frequently used in Korean profanity. If your friend asks out a girl who is way out of his league, and gets turned down in a spectacular way, you might say (in way of consolation)

"병신아, 아주 삽질을 했구나?" (You idiot, you totally wasted your time.)

In this usage, the word "병신" is just a friendly derogatory word, just like how you can insult someone without actually meaning it in English.

Now you must be able to guess that the word "병림픽" means an Olympic of the idiots, where two 병신s (in the lighter sense of the word) duel to see who is the bigger idiot (fairly appropriate in the case of Trump and Kim, and you can easily see cases like this in Korean life too, such as in the case of 현피).

However, the word "병신" actually has a clearly established meaning: it comes from two Hanja letters "병" (illness) and "신" (body), so it refers to a body with an illness; i.e. someone who is disabled. No one should use this word in its full meaning, as it is incredibly offensive. Technically, if someone could not walk, you could call them a "다리병신" (since "다리" means leg, it means that the person has an illness in his legs). But remember that "병신" is also an insult in Korean, so you are insulting a disabled person in the worst possible way. You will NEVER see a Korean use such a word in real life (but you might see it in K-drama, or in some old literature, where this usage seems to have been more common, before the word "병신" became a widespread insult.)

And this original meaning of the word "병신" makes the meaning of the slang "병림픽" incredibly offensive. My issue with the word "병림픽" is that in the literal sense of the word, it is in fact synonymous with the Paralympic games.

Here's one other instance where you can definitely use the word "병림픽," to talk about that Olympic game where the figure skater Yuna Kim lost to Adelina Sotnikova. Koreans were so enraged, and I think they still are.

It seems that the Korean population is divided on this issue; some people will be very offended for the same reason that I just explained. But some argue that the word "병신" is not being used to describe the handicapped, and that one should not even be thinking about this real meaning.

In any case, I would refrain from using this word around most Koreans. Among close friends (who you know are foul-mouthed) I can see it being OK; but I would use this word with extreme caution.

In closing, here's a fun fact. The Chinese calendar uses sixty different words to describe each year (these words cycle, so the same name is given to different years spaced 60 years apart.) By this calendar, the word given to the year 2018 is "무술" ("무" means "yellow" and "술" refers to "dog", hence the year of the "yellow (golden) dog.") Similarly, 2017 was 정유년 (year of "red rooster") and 2016 was, amazingly, "병신년" (the year of "red monkey.")

But of course, the more common usage of the word "병신" is the insult for disabled people. To make matters worse, the word "년" has two common meanings; it can refer to the year, but it is also a derogatory suffix for a woman, so that "미친년" is a "crazy b-tch," and "짜증나는년" is an "annoying b-tch." And what was supposed to be "the year of red monkey" because "disabled b-tch." So, 2016 was an interesting year for the Koreans!

Koreans waited for 2016 just for this. It says "We have entered 2016, the year of the monkey," but of course, the more common meaning is "We have entered 2016, the year of the crazy b-tch."

Although the word "병신" have absolutely nothing to do with the insult "병신"as they are based on different Hanja, the Koreans didn't miss this funny coincidence. Not only that, 2016 was the year of the Olympics in Rio, so this Olympic Games was dubbed "병림픽." I guess this is one of the reasons I can't stay away from the Korean internet. They can be ridiculously politically incorrect, but at least you can count on them to be witty and hilarious!

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