Category: Korean Language (Page 12 of 12)

Learning Korean and discussions about language

Konglish: Mind Control

2012/06/29 / Nic / 13 Comments

There are a lot of Konglish words used by Koreans. I haven’t even heard them all so I’m constantly discovering new ones. It’s not like my husband or another Korean can just list them all for me because they don’t usually know themselves that it is Konglish or English. There are different types too- ones that are English words mashed together or shortened, and some that are just an English word used in a different way. Some are easy to work out: Like ‘Hand Phone’ for cell or mobile phone. Except it’s said like hand-der-pone.

Anyway, I first saw this one – Mind Control – on G-Dragon. It’s one of his newer tattoos. For a native English speaker when we see ‘mind control’ we are thinking of something like brainwashing right? Either in the realistic sense of brain washing and manipulating the population like in dictatorships and communist regimes, or we are thinking about the more science fiction definition of controlling people’s minds.

So what do Koreans mean when they say ‘mind control’? From what I can gather when they use it they mean they are trying to control their thoughts (so you can see why they use these words) and concentrate, calm themselves down or perhaps just what we might call ‘collecting their thoughts’. I’ve heard it a few times since seeing G-Dragon’s tattoo and it always seems to be used in that sense.

My husband assures me that some Koreans understand the original English meaning. Usually gamers, because this type of power is in a lot of computer games. I assumed G-Dragon meant the Konglish meaning for his tattoo. That he simply wants to concentrate and be in control of his mind. BUT, what if he means the original English meaning? What if he wants to do mind control? To control his fans?!

I drew him with his latest hair style which he changed yesterday? The day before? Anyway he is in Paris doing fashiony stuff and that’s what he looks like at the moment.

One could argue that with his charisma he hardly needs the supernatural power of mind control anyway.

Bad Korean

2012/06/17 / Nic / 2 Comments

When we were in Vanuatu we came across this hat in a shop. There are many Chinese shops in Port Vila but it was funny to come across Hangul in one of them. And Hangul that makes no sense.

It says “Children…….something…..Monk”.

So someone just had random Hangul printed on these hats. Not really surprising when you consider how much bad English is on clothing. Who are these people who decide what will be on these clothes? Are they locked in a room with no computer and internet? I seriously wonder sometimes.

Maybe

2012/06/16 / Nic / 9 Comments

One of the many differences between English and Korean is how direct you are to people. The Korean language has a lot of ambiguity and people often don’t say exactly what they mean. Whereas in English we can be very clear and say exactly what we mean and it’s socially acceptable to speak like that as well. So while native Korean speakers can usually understand each other because they understand the subtleness of the language, it can be hard for someone learning the language.

What is also hard is when a Korean person speaks with the ambiguity of the Korean language but in English!

Sometimes my direct questions are answered this way too often and I can get a bit annoyed!

One time I asked my Korean teacher about this and he said, “If your husband says ‘maybe’ he probably means no.”

Then I asked my husband and he said, “I usually mean yes.”

See? Even Koreans can’t agree on it!

Scared of Korean Class

2012/06/15 / Nic / 4 Comments

I have not been to Korean class in many many weeks. I have been busy and also traveling but I fear I am woefully behind. I have class tomorrow and I’m worried this will happen.Yes, I’m worried that I will freak out as soon as the teacher says something to me in Korean and run away.

Email

2012/05/01 / Nic / 2 Comments

I ended up leaving without logging into my own email. Thank God for smart phones with email on them. I was able to just show the ticket checker man my phone.

Konglish- Fighting!

2012/04/11 / Nic / 2 Comments

This happened about 3 years ago while living in an apartment in Sydney with my brother and a bunch of other people (some Korean).

I’d had a bad day and was upset or stressed about something. My brother was trying to cheer me up.

One of our housemates could see I was upset and came over to us.

I had no idea that he was using an English word in a Korean way to say something like ‘cheer up!’ or ‘try your best! or ‘you can do it!’ I just thought he was accusing my brother and I of fighting… which we were not doing at all.

I didn’t realise the real meaning of this Konglish until much later and when I remembered this incident it suddenly all made sense!

Reading Korean

2012/04/03 / Nic / 10 Comments

I’m learning Korean. It’s pretty difficult. My teacher always tells the class to read aloud the dialogues and narratives in our text books at home. So I read to my husband to make sure I’m pronouncing things right. Now if I had to listen to someone read the same dialogue 10 times in English I would start banging my head against the wall. So overall he is very patient while I butcher Korean pronunciation.

However, this does happen.

So I’ll be forcing him to listen to me read.

And some more…