Skip to main content

Don't Take Korean Language Advice From Kyopos

I'm not sure why it took me so long to figure this out, but the last people you should take Korean language advice from are kyopos (foreign-born or raised Koreans). That being said, if you do follow their advice, you will get many laughs from Koreans. Some of my personal favorites, all of which actually happened to me:

- When I first got to Korea, I was at some open-air event, and during a break I started talking to one of the hosts. He said he was only a part-time host, so I asked him what his full-time job was, and he said "백수" (which is slang for "unemployed guy"). I asked him what that was, and he replied, "Comedian". So then the next few people I met, I proudly told I was a baeksu. (Edit: Actually, this guy was Korean Korean, not kyopo.)

- Next, a kyopo who lived in the apartment I moved into back in 2010 asked me what I was doing in Korea, and I told him I was starting a company, and asked how to say that in Korean in case people ask. He told me the way to say "starting a company" is "싸우다", which literally means "to fight", but apparently is a slang way of saying "to do business". I bought it, and the next day on the subway, a random stranger asked me what I was doing in Korea, and sure enough, I said, "싸우다". Thinking they misheard, they asked again, and again I replied that I was in Korea to fight. They quickly moved away.

- My favorite might be a recent occurrence. While eating "흑돼지", my kyopo friend asked me if I knew what "흑" meant, and I said, "Yeah, it means 'black', right?" No no, came the reply. "흑" means "dirt", so it's just slang for "black". Knowing that "흑인" is what Koreans call black people, I was like, "Uh, does that mean all this time Koreans have been calling black people "dirt people"? That's fucked up!" Kyopo friend says, "Yeah, isn't that fucked up?"

Yes! That is fucked up! Especially if it were true, which it isn't. "흑" means "black", so "흑인" literally means "black person". The word for "dirt" is "흙", which in most parts of Korea is pronounced exactly the same as "흑". Korea might be a racist country, but in this instance the reality is far more benign than the kyopo imagination.

Lesson learned - whatever you do, don't learn Korean from kyopos!

Comments

  1. 푸헐~ ㅋㅋㅋ 완전 웃기네요~ 본인은 당황 하셨겠지만 ㅎㅎㅋㅋㅋㅋ 빵터짐 ㅋㅋ

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is funny. . .. a kyopo that I know also told me the dirt thing and I was offended. But when I asked my Korean born and raised bf he told me they were completely different words. . . .figures, loll

    ReplyDelete
  3. For Number Two. I think he meant "세우다" as in "Erect/Start a company"-- :) Either he pronounced it wrong, or you pronounced it wrong haha :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. @angiepewpew That would totally make sense, except he actually described it to me as "the same word as 'to fight'". Ah well, now I know :).

    ReplyDelete
  5. Really i am impressed from this post....the person who created this post is a genius and knows how to keep the readers connected..

    Black Dirt Company

    ReplyDelete
  6. Even if you learn that word from 교포s (me, American born Korean), for most native speakers, 흑 in that sense almost always connotates as black. But straight up as it is, literal translation means "dirt". Usually use out of context, most of the time, it's never meant to be offensive. That's just our way of describing such attributes. 흑인, taken literally, means dirt (흑) person/human (인), but that's not at all the way we interpret that. In the best sense, when translated, that just purely means black person. It's our way of describing dark skin I guess. It's not supposed to be in anyway offensive, no matter the literal translation. For example, 흑(our meaning for dark/black)돼지(pig/hog) means black pig (specific type of meat/cut of pork). Doesn't mean we're classifying it as a lesser/greater meat.. they're actually a delicacy in most places. Just that it comes from a black colored hog/pig. Hope this clarifies and clears up a lot of misunderstandings. Many Korean words and phrases can often be grossly taken out of context, but the underlying meaning is usually not fully understood. However, that's our way of describing things, and in no ways (or maybe most ways) is it meant to intentionally attack any other cultures / skin colors. Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  7. To reiterate 흙 / 흑 (dirt) usually points to the same thing depending on context and how it's used in a sentence.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

영어가 모국어인 사람들은 왜 한국어를 배우기가 어려운 이유

이 포스트는 내 처음 한국어로 블로그 포스트인데, 한국어에 대하니까 잘 어울린다. =) 자, 시작합시다! 왜 외국사람에게 한국어를 배우기가 어렵다? 난 한국어를 배우고 있는 사람이라서 이 문제에 대해 많이 생각하고 있었다. 여러가지 이유가 있는데 오늘 몇 이유만 논할 것이다. 1. 분명히 한국어 문법은 영어에 비해 너무 많이 다른다. 영어는 “오른쪽으로 분지(分枝)의 언어"라고 하는데 한국어는 “왼쪽으로 분지의 언어"이다. 뜻이 무엇이나요? 예를 보면 이해할 수 있을 것이다. 간단한 문장만 말하면 (외국어를 말하는 남들은 간단한 문장의 수준을 지낼 수가 약간 드물다), 간단한 걸 기억해야 돼: 영어는 “SVO”인데 한국어는 “SOV”이다. “I’m going to school”라고 한국어로는 “저는 학교에 가요"라고 말한다. 영어로 똑바로 번역하면 “I’m school to go”이다. 두 언어 다르는 게 목적어와 동사의 곳을 교환해야 한다. 별로 어렵지 않다. 하지만, 조금 더 어렵게 만들자. “I went to the restaurant that we ate at last week.” 한국어로는 “전 우리 지난 주에 갔던 식당에 또 갔어요"라고 말한다. 영어로 똑바로 번역하면 “I we last week went to restaurant to again went”말이다. 한국어가 왼쪽으로 분지 언어라서 문장 중에 왼쪽으로 확대한다! 이렇게 좀 더 쉽게 볼 수 있다: “전 (우리 지난 주에 갔던 식당)에 또 갔어요”. 주제가 “전"이고 동사가 “갔다"이고 목적어가 “우리 지난 주에 갔던 식당"이다. 영어 문장은 오른쪽으로 확대한다: I (S) went (V) to (the restaurant (that we went to (last week))) (O). 그래서 두 숙어 문장 만들고 싶으면 생각속에서도 순서를 변해야 된다. 2. 첫 째 점이니까 다른 사람을 자기 말을 아라들게 하고 싶으면, 충분히

10 other things South Korea does better than anywhere else

Recently this article about 10 things that South Korea does better than anywhere else  has been making the rounds on social media, but when I first read it, I couldn't tell if it was sincere or satire. A few of the items on the list are not very positive, such as "overworking" and "using credit cards". So, I thought I would try to put together a better list. Here are 10 other things South Korea does better than anywhere else: 1) Small side dishes, a.k.a. " banchan " (반찬) Banchan are by far my favorite aspect of Korean cuisine. Rather than the "appetizer and main dish" approach of the West, a Korean meal is essentially built around small dishes. Even a 5,000 won (about $5 USD) meal at a mall food court will come with two to four banchan in addition to the "main", and often people will actually choose restaurants based  on the banchan (e.g., seolleongtang , or beef bone broth soup, places tend to have the tastiest kimchi). Ther

The King's Speech (and me)

Tonight, I finally gathered the courage to watch The King's Speech . Why did I need courage to watch a movie, you might ask? The reason is both simple and intricately complex: I'm a stutterer (Edit: person who stutters; "stutterer" is not who I am, but something that I do from time to time), and I have been for as long as I remember. Well, there it is - I've said it. To be fair, I actually don't remember stuttering when I was little. My first very distinct memory of stuttering was sometime in seventh grade, when I had trouble saying "nosotros" (we/us) in Spanish class. But I also remember knowing I was going to have trouble saying it, because we were going around the room, and I counted ahead to see what I was going to have to say. Which means by that point I was already stuttering. When did it start? That's a question for another day. So why am I publicizing this fact now? First, I'm in the midst of a lifelong attempt to "cure&quo