Was just watching “CSI Las Vegas”: Season 6, Episode 139, “Time of Your Death.” Anyway, toward the end, Grissom questions a high-stakes Korean gambler and his bodyguards. He asks the bodyguards to take off their shoes.
As they take them off, Grissom says, “Gamsa-hamnida.”
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I caught the Boss’ comment but I didn’t hear Grissom.
I was too busy asking my wife what he said (the bad guy).
Saw it also. Do dislike it when the hahm syllable is over-stressed. At least Grissom didn’t pronounce it “ham”. BTW, the “OC” has lot of Korean sideshow activity. Dr. Kim and kimchi and gang-sign flashin’ Korean “rappers”. Respek, Korea.
Go back and watch Kentucky Fried Movie for some early Korean-language Wave action.
Apparently M. Night’s new movie the Lady in the Water has some Korean too. The whole story is supposed to be based on some Korean folktale and they keep having to go upstairs and asking the old Korean woman more information. Of course that’s just what MTV told me. I haven’t actually seen the movie yet.
I thought Grissom pronounced it fairly well. Well, at least better than Owen Wilson in “Starsky and Hutch.” OK, that’s not fair—Owen had to make several full sentences.
Yes, he got the vowels right. But, other than the foreigner, who says gamsa hahm nida? (Slight pause after sa and the over stress of the H.) But he did make the vowel an “ah”, so he gets some credit.
Wae-noms who speak Korean are highly entertaining for us Kyopos. I realized this when I saw the TV series Lost for the first time recently.
Now, the character Jin played by Daniel Dae Kim made me grimace with pain whenever he opened his mouth. Objectively, I realize that he probably deserves a lot of credit for brushing on a language that he is totally not comfortable with, despite his obvious ethnic heritage. But nevertheless, whenever us Kyopos experiences a fellow Korean-American talking in piss-poor Korean, on national TV no less, it is an embarassment because there is an element of self-reflecting mortification.
But witnessing a wae-nom speaking in Korean has the opposite effect. There’s a scene in Lost where Jin and a white guy are in a public bathroom together and the white guy unexpectedly starts saying things to Jin in Korean. That was FUNNY! And it wasn’t just a one-liner like “gamsahamni-da” but a whole freakin paragraph’s worth of material, a whole lot more Korean than he should have been allowed to speak. And it sounded like nothing I’ve ever heard before.
So yes, if any of you are wondering what to do in your post-English hagwon teaching life or whatever, it’s an interesting possibility. Just dont all of you do it at once because then the novelty factor wears off.
I wonder what people would call the Korean-language version of Engrish…
I saw that episode here in Canada a few weeks back. In a way, it was “authentic,” precisely because as a non-fluent non-Korean, Gil Grissom did not pronounce “kamsahamnida” fluently, but with only approximate correctness (or too correctly, if you analyze the word’s spelling versus its prononunciation).
Speaking of Lost, there was one episode recently where we got the whole of Jin’s backstory (with a bit of what’s-her-face thrown in), and I could swear that half of the Korean-American actors in that episode also sounded like they’d never spoken Korean as their first language.
But Bluejives, you needn’t worry: the only people who will realize such actors are speaking bad Korean are other Korean speakers…it’s not like the average Lost/OC/whatever-watching viewer will realize how crappy it is! At least the Korean language—whatever the quality of its delivery—is getting more exposure in mainstream culture these days.
I wonder what people would call the Korean-language version of Engrish…
Oh yeah, people who cant pronounce distinguishly between their r’s and l’s and the like is still funny I suppose, as if Engrish jokes & humor haven’t been done to death by now.
However, there’s something refreshingly different & precious about an overly stern-faced white dude speaking Korean as if it were Japanese, with some kind of wierd samurai affectation, or as if he watched a little too much Kung Fu movies or something.
Bluejives, LOL to your last paragraph there. Do such people exist? I haven’t met such a person but I can easily picture one, embarrassing me and my fellow caucasians. I think they’d be analogous to the “Japanophiles” whom Curzon knocks (I know, I know: that’s a loaded term with a hundred different definitions).
Do such people exist? I haven’t met such a person but I can easily picture one
Well, in that one scene in Lost (1st season), which I mentioned above, where this guy who looked like an ugly version of the comedian Colin Mochrie, spoke such atrociously funny Korean. I’m not making this up or exaggerating. It totally caught me off guard and I dont usually laugh out loud spontaneously to most things. You have to see it to really appreciate it. Like I said, it was like NOTHING I’ve ever heard before.
You do know that “waenom” refers only to Japanese right?
He was being ironic by using poor Korean himself while laughing at non-Koreans who do the same. I’m entirely certain it was intentional.
After all, I doubt he’d want to make the compatriots he speaks for cringe in embarassment.
I’m sure he knows “waenom” means “Japanese.” I didn’t even bother checking…knowing Bluejives, he probably meant it….
There’s some bad Korean in the 007 movie Die Another Day, too (the one set partly in Korea, right?), spoken by the actor who plays the general’s son transformed into an Icelandic diamond magnate.
Well, from looking at baduk’s comments, I guess the worst thing a kyopo can do is deviate from the party line. As long as bluehives continues keeping the faith, I imagine his piss-poor language skills will be forgiven.
Yeah, that scene in Lost with the mob boss’s envoy is hilarious. Whatever that was, that was NOT Korean. It took me a while before I figured out what language he was “speaking” (and if they hadn’t already established the context, it would have been even harder to figure out). Heavily-accented English is, on the other hand, not so funny. It’s just really annoying to me for some reason (I guess being raised by immigrants doesn’t necessarily make one “desensitized”, although I suspect we’re much more understanding of non-native English speakers than other Americans).
I’d trade Grissom’s “Thank you” and all the Korean on Lost for Lee Young-ae’s “Swiss-English” (or whatever the hell it was) in JSA… Not to mention all the bad English in all those Hong Kong action films… or the Japanese in Kill Bill. In fact, if you watch Vietnamese TV dramas, you can find a Vietnamese actor playing a Korean exchange student who speaks fluent Vietnamese.
I have no point.
I guess “waenoms” are for Bluejives what “commies” are for Baduk.
Getting back to CSI, I hardly remember any of the dialog now, a few months later, but I do remember at the end when the gambler relented and asked his bodyguards to take off their shoes, he said to them something like, “빨리 벗어라” (”take them off fast”), which sounded pretty authentic, apart from the fact that judging by his intonation, the actor was clearly KA; not living in Korea and just visiting, as the character was supposed to be doing.
No, Haisan, you make a good point. How about all those Korean TV dramas with characters who’ve supposedly lived or studied in English-speaking countries, yet can hardly say their English lines at all!? And for kicks, there’s one recent drama that had a character living in Swizterland and supposedly speaking fluent French, who sounded just as bad.
On the other hand, non-Koreans who make it onto Korean dramas—speaking English—are not much better. Yes, at least their delivery is more natural—most of the time—but they’re clearly not professional actors, just local members of the expat community who lucked into an acting gig (or members of the host community if the drama’s being shot abroad)…the amateurism shows. Love Story in Harvard—or whatever it was called—has been much lambasted on this board in the past, but at least the American actors were half-decent (though certainly not star-quality) actors!
Anyhow, I’d like to see one Korean drama set abroad that has (a) Korean actors who actually sound like they’re living in the country where the drama is set (an accent is fine; just try to sound like the Korean immigrants there, not like you just stepped off the plane from Incheon!) and (b) has professional non-Korean actors as well.
On the whole waenom thing, I just want to say I do find the waenom—actually, waenyeon—doing the whole “쿄토에서 왔습니다. 다원녹차” for the Daweon Green Tea commercials rather charming. Sounds kind of cute and all, the Japanese accent. Although as a whole, I guess I’d rather watch Jeon Ji-hyeon’s 17 Green Tea commercials…
That girl sure can limbo!
She sure can.
How about “GO” (2001) by Isao Yukisada. Based on a novel by a zainichi Kazuki Kaneshiro. It’s a fun to watch movie about Koreans in Japan, but most of the Japanese actors playing Koreans speak their “Korean” lines with a horrible accent or they mumble like shit, especially the pro-North Korean teacher at the protagonist’s high school. One of the few guys who speaks accent-free Korean in this movie, is the Chongryon official, where the father of the main actors tries to change his alliance to Mindan for a ROK passport.
A great movie although:
Ah, forgot the link: Klick here!
what makes me cringe is korean entertainers with an american name, who supposedly have lived in the states for long time, long enough where they adopted an american name, speaking engrish like they are a fob.
LOL Korea is all over American TV now…after CSI, Letterman joked about KJI getting married again–”Now he too knows what it’s like to live in a dictatorship” [cue cymbal crash]
The Korean characters on CSI had an oddly clipped way of talking…Grissom did do well with “kamsahamnida,” I agree.
the worst is the “korean” girl and her mom on the gilmore girls. or so i’ve heard.
Sugar Shin: The link doesn’t work?
Seoulmilk: the worst is the “korean” girl and her mom on the gilmore girls. or so i’ve heard.
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You guys get Gilmore Girls over there?
I don’t believe the the ladies who play Koreans on that show are Koreans.
It’s weird though, the only Asians you see on TV these days seems to be Koreans for some reason. Seems like lot to the writers on those TV shows are big K-Drama fans. They’re actually doing K-Drama on “LOST” with that Korean couple.
dunno if it’s too late to respond or whatever
but half the ‘Lost’ crew speaks decent enough Korean.
the others… um. even my heavily American accented kyopo Korean is better than that Jin fellows.
I’ll say this though… this is a far cry from the m*a*s*h days when you’d pick up anyone who looked remotely asian to play Korean folks.
haha.
Origami, that’s a good point. The two’s whole backstory is straight out of a typical soap opera: the contemptuous hotel-owning boss; elite daughter hooked up with Harvard (?)-educated boss’s son—it falls apart—she falls in love with the doorman….
If only they’d actually shot it in Seoul instead of LA, it might have been quite authentic (er, for a Korean drama, that is: not for real life)!
The “Korean” characters on M*A*S*H were a joke. They were mostly 3rd-generation Chinese American, it would seem, and the fake “accent” (since they would have spoken straight-up American English in reality) was always a hundred miles off a Korean accent.
On a related note… What’s everyone’s take on Bobby Lee’s (from Mad TV) accent when he speaks Korean? I’ve always thought it to be pretty poor, but being no real judge of accents in Korean, I can’t really call it.