This is so dumb-founding I will just let the angry white* man speak for himself:
“I’m surprised and disgusted at the same time that with all the English-speaking people in Korea, that the broadcasters would not enlarge their viewer base.”
And:
A lot of English-speaking people from ambassadors to lowly English teachers who don’t have the ability to book into hotels where there is satellite transmission in English, ought to be able to sit in their own homes, watch these games and understand what’s being said.”
Harsh stuff. As a mono-lingual English speaker, I feel your pain brother. However, I feel obliged to point out that we are in Korea, which is not an English-speaking country. If they do not want to broadcast the games in English, that is their business.
In any case, it is soccer. How much commentary do you need?
*(NOTE: The guy quoted in the piece is a South African. I assume that he a white African because I just cannot imagine a black African saying stuff like that. Also, please note I am not saying that out of racism (I am a whitey myself.).)
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I’d imagine quite a lot… to fill up all that down-time between goals.
Democratic 7th president turned Republican operative in Korea Andy Jackson wrote:
Harsh stuff. As a mono-lingual English speaker, I feel your pain brother.However, I feel obliged to point out that we are in Korea, which is not an English-speaking country. If they do not want to broadcast the games in English, that is their business.
Au contraire, this is an English-speaking country. It is or will be the official second language in at least one or two locales, it is taught universally from elementary school to the end of high school, and it is the de facto language of commerce.
Surely a country that is seeking to attract international business and commerce (and residents) would have made sure that at least one entity had the world’s largest single sporting event available in what is essential the global tongue.
Keep raising a stink, Mr. Tambourine Man, and maybe by the 2010 South Africa World Cup, they’ll have the games broadcast somewhere in Korea in English. If you’ve made it here that long (something I’m not giving high odds for).
“Goallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!” sounds pretty much the same in every language.
Actually, while I don’t blame broadcasters for not running English-language broadcasts, I do find it odd that Star Sports isn’t broadcasting the games in Korea.
Come to think of it, Spanish-language commentary would be much more entertaining than English. Lobby for that instead.
old school: when you wanted something done in Korea, you brought enough white envelopes to improve the chances of it actually getting done.
new school: when you want something done in Korea, tell the appropriate authorities that accomplishing Task X will make Korea the Hub of X.
surely there’s a bureaucrat somewhere out there just aching to give a press conference announcing Korea as the future Hub of English-Language World Cup Broadcasts.
it’s just a matter of finding him and letting him know about this golden opportunity.
No English language commentary?! Koreans are racist!
i was at a friend’s house in ‘99 and she had a tv with a special button that “killed” the korean dubbing on western movies. You just hit the button and suddenly it was the original audio. i really wanted my tv to do the same thing, but was told that only tvs larger than a certain size were allowed to have that function.
i have no idea what the current situation is, but it seems to me the ability to broadcast two seperate audio channels existed way back when.
i encourage the korean stations to bring it back (if it’s gone) and hire those guys who do the english play-by-play for the starcraft programs.
or, get some budding young speaker of english and korean to set up a real-time internet broadcast of english commentary.
i’d be willing to charge people for a service like that.. where do all the South Africans hang out?
There is no sense of entitlement quite like the white South Efrikan man’s sense of entitlement. This guy was saying that immigrants to Korea ought to be able to sit and watch the games in their own homes without checking into a special international hotel to cadge a look at its satellite feed. I’m pretty sure there already is a way: Learn Korean. I did.
“Learn Korean. I did.”
The more I know the less I want to listen. I believe it was Joel who also pointed that out on another thread somewhere. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
I found the best way to watch sports is with the volume off or at a low volume. For the most part, the announcers offer very little that I already don’t know (besides western broadcasts and their affinity for obscure statistics).
I was quite busy working Friday night, so I was unable to watch the game. I put the volume up to a pretty high level so that I could hear if something happened from my computer room. Needless to say that did not work out very well. Many times when the announcers were completely freaking out, the ball was somewhere around midfield.
Off with the volume. Up with the beer, food, and friends. This, by the way, was the common method of viewing when I was back in the homeland as well.
“There is no sense of entitlement quite like the white South Efrikan man’s sense of entitlement. This guy was saying that immigrants to Korea ought to be able to sit and watch the games in their own homes without checking into a special international hotel to cadge a look at its satellite feed. I’m pretty sure there already is a way: Learn Korean. I did.”
Are you saying that a South African should be FORCED to learn the language of Kaffirs? Next you will say god isnt white!
There ought to be a nude women’s soccer league in the World Cup games; it would not matter to me which language it was broadcasted in.
Men’s soccer needs cheerleaders.
–Remort
I think what this guy is saying is that most cable company offerings suck…I don’t know if he’s right or wrong, but Koreans in LA and NYC can watch games in Korean, I’ll bet through those “Korean” channels. Just a thought…
The Immigration Department estimates that there are at present about 820,000 non-Koreans living here either legally or illegally. Of this group, it’s safe to assume that not all speak English (no, don’t thank me for such brilliances). With a market as fractionally small as that, what impetus would there be to provide English-language services at this time?
Even if English-language commentary were available, English speakers from different cultures still use different expressions when talking about sports. English-language commentary might seem reasonable to a disaffected South African in Sunchon, but subsisting on the visual feed alone is not that bad of an alternative.
BTW, what nationality is Les Murray?
No need to make fun of the guy because he’s South African. But gbnhj raises a very good point, which is that the market for English speakers just ain’t that big, and at any rate, it would seem to me that the markets for Chinese or, shit, Bengali-language broadcasts might be larger.
some nice stereotypes flying around here :
white south african = racist, with sense of entitlement
hey shakuhachi, better be careful with who you use that K-word with
The problem with any potential English commentary for World Cup matches in Korea is that they’d probably hire the bozos from Arirang TV to do it.
Anyhow, it’s soccer… on TELEVISION… it’s not like sound or commentary is really that vital to the experience.
lol… at least he wasnt insisting on the broadcast being in Afrikaans.
[Regarding the study of the Korean language:] The more I know the less I want to listen. I believe it was Joel who also pointed that out on another thread somewhere. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
Well, sure, this is the essential problem. If one is offended by the claptrap being bruited about the English-language Korean newspapers, then an excursion into the vernacular media poses all-new levels of horrors. It doesn’t get any better, folks.
The down side of learning Korean is then you can only use it to speak to Koreans. In a nutshell, this is the tragedy of my professional career.
Football? Ha!
It kills me when my girlfriend doesn’t use Korean during sex. This whole Englsh thing is going way too far. All she ever does is speak English! “Oh it feel so good, so good”, “Oh Daddy, oh love it…” Ha! Come on! How ’bout a little Hanguk mal over here! God almighty! I’m putting out like a johnny pump and I can’t even get one “Appa”!
Hard….
Are you looking for “Appa” or “Oppa”?
Appa!
Why don’t you ask her, “Who’s your Appa?”
That sounds Greek…
But I know what you mean. It’s like the problem I’ve got with my Ferrari: the damn thing goes like a bat out of hell, but the gas milage is killing me.
Why don’t you ask her, “Who’s your Appa?”
I’m too caught up in calling her Omoni.
In Japan many of the stations have an English toggle so you can decide what language to listen to.
Les Murray is Hungarian and who btw doesn’t commentate. I too believe this article is tripe. The native English speakers here must rank below 1/2 a dozen other languages in terms of total numbers. Also, given that large presence of Americans in Korea would any potential broadcast be a Yank using the annoyingly incorrect terminology, like “goal tender”, “offence” and “umpire”? That would render all games unlistenable to me. I’d sooner listen to Arirang who would provide a twenty something male stiff and giggly female Kyopo broadcast grad who would try to make witty banter about the colour of the uniforms and the facial expressions on the players.
Come on now! I for one would never use the term offence. I find that offensive. Besides everyone knows there is no offense in soccer. BadamBAM!
Speaking of offense, anyone notice who the pitcher was on Barry Bonds’ home run that put him past Babe Ruth? None other than:
Kim Byung-hyun
Barry Bonds is a big fat cheater. He probably took an extra dose for that game.
As for: ”
but Koreans in LA and NYC can watch games in Korean, I’ll bet through those “Korean” channels.”
Koreans are long term stayers in America. They have good reasons to start their own language stations to serve their huge presence. On the other hand, what English teacher from America, doing his/her 1 year tour in Korea have the motivation and resources to start their own language station? And you wonder how much soccer anyone from the mid West America would care about?
Barry Bonds is a big fat cheater.
Maybe so, but that doesn’t change the fact that BH Kim is the real home run king, if you know what I mean.
I’m a long term stayer here. Unfortunately, Korea won’t permit me to own any media outlets.
As a hockey fan who can’t find NHL games, wah wah wah to you Mr. No-English soccer whiner.
Seriously, anyone who is even half a fan of any sport can easily watch, understand and be entertained with the play-by-play. Commentators are just the icing on the cake.
“without the play-by-play” !!!
me: but Koreans in LA and NYC can watch games in Korean, I’ll bet through those “Korean” channels.”
cm: Koreans are long term stayers in America. They have good reasons to start their own language stations to serve their huge presence.
me: Right, but the argument farther up in the thread was more along the lines of, “When in Rome, do as the Romans….” I was merely pointing out that while we are expected to do as Koreans (accept Korean-language TV), Koreans in the US don’t follow the same dictum. So the argument that “This is Korea, not America, don’t ask for English” is weak…
And as “railwaycharm” said above, English IS available in Japan. Maybe this is just one more small reason while there are so few long-term stayers in this country.
Does anyone know how many of these games we could actually watch in korea? Would cable tv offer most of them? I want to see something like USA against the Czechs. thanks for any info.
I was surprised to see this entry. Here in the US nobody seems to care for World Cup. People don’t even know who Landon Donovan is. OK, it’s a South African man, I got it.
Speaking of broadcasting, I actually like Spanish program. My Spanish isn’t good enough to understand, but soccer announcer is funny.Go~~~~~~~~~~~~~~al! Who needs commentary in soccer match anyway?
Go Korea and US!
I have worked with the government here on Internet type business, they have a strangle hold on everything the MIC lords over. Fat chance a Weagook is going to open ANYTHING related.
It’ll have to be the Internet for the WC if you want to see any decent game coverage.
June–I used to watch the WC on the Spanish-language stations, they have an amazing way of stretching out “goal,” es verdad.
By the way, this was rather odd: “S. Korea Ranks Low in Nat’l Pride”
http://english.kbs.co.kr/news/.....2006053001
Maybe they should boost the number of times commericials say “Daehan Mingook” from 100 to 500 times a day to get back on track
kushibo is an idiot~
While I was in Korea, I was told there was a regulation limiting the number of foreign channels that could be broadcast by a Korean cable provider. The number was 3 or 4, as I recall. When I asked the reason why, I was told, “Cable companies might offer too many foreign channels because it is prestigious, but it is wasteful because Koreans don’t watch them.”
China is even worse - the only foreign channel is CCP English mouthpiece CCTV 9, the laughing stock of foreigners all over the country. Satellites are illegal in apartment complexes unless at least 50% of the residents are foreign nationals. Most of the dishes you see in China are illegal, and periodically, the government cracks down and runs around town ripping dishes off rooftops.
Thank goodness for public access TV in the States. My college town of 100,000 has one public access station that broadcasts international programs all day long in about a dozen different languages. The local cable company has a Spanish-language package with 6 channels.
I suspect the lack of foreign language programming has more to do with regulation than with a lack of demand.
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