A certain funny as hell Twitter account made the rounds of the Korean blogsphere a year ago that attributed itself to the South Korean Government. It was, of course, a satire account set-up by a self-declared non-Korean guy. His alter ego appeared to be a sexually repressed, cubicle slave, ROK reservist, low-level Korean bureaucrat with an absurdly bad case of Konglish.
Well, last Friday koreangov called it quits. Farewell koreangov. Your (pseudo) anti-Japanese, (pseudo) pro-Korean tourism and biting commentaries on Korean society will surely be missed by many.
koreangov’s last post on his blog had some interesting parting commentary of its own:
I do not believe as some do that Korea displays unfounded and excessive pride. There is plenty for people to be proud of in Korea, and plenty for the world to envy. I do, however, believe that much of that pride is misdirected. It is not, in my humble opinion, the alphabet, kimchi, or the distinctive seasons that will inspire and dazzle the world any more than the cuisine or climate of any other country will. Can you imagine the Arabic-speaking world promoting itself on the strength of its script or (mostly) desert environment? Heck, Ethiopians have a unique alphabet and 5000 years of history, but I bet that doesn’t really excite anyone outside of Ethiopia much either.
It was good to hear his true voice, without all the grammatically incorrect Konglish of his alter ego.
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Then what SHOULD Korea be proud of? The paragraph immediately following the quoted one:
Amen to that. And now, cue the 개떼 똥파리들.
I think you’re going to be disappointed TK. I doubt you’ll find many here that disagree with the paragraph you quoted.
Do you mean
1. a pack of dogs *and* a swarm of shit-flies
or
2. shit flies which swarm around a pack of dogs
I prefer the second choice. That’s a nice combination. I will add to my collection of 욕 vocab.
He means whitey.
Nah, can’t mean that. Shit ain’t white.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
i just got done giving Mr. Digsby a full-on korean bow.
My shit is white after I do my yearly physical.
I need a refresher Korean lesson – is 떼 the counter for animals…nah, that can’t be because there’s another counter/postposition for animals – I don’t recall ever seeing 떼 before – anyway, that’s a great phrase, AAK – not one we learned in class.
@ #7 :
Hi, chiamatt, it’s a nice job presenting Korean characters in such a way in your blog, “Hangul (한글)” on 16 Nov. 2009.
There are some issues regarding the pronunciations, as you pointed out. However, I guess that not even Korean linguistics scholars would solve these problems easily.
떼/무리 are not counters of animals- 마리(mari) is.
떼(dde) means a whole bunch of them
e.g. swarm of bees = 벌떼, swarm of flies = 파리떼, herd of elephants = 코끼리떼
무리(muri) is saved for non-insects and bigger mammals 코끼리 한무리
it also has a feeling of being more of a community-based group, whereas 떼 a much more chaotic group/
@ # 8:
Hi CactusMcHarris,
(1) The definition of the Korean word, “떼”, according to Korean online dictionary at http://www.daum.net
떼: 목적이나 행동을 같이하는 무리 (명사)
: a group or crowd that moves together or acts together with the
same purpose (Noun) [hmm, my English translation... is it
Konglish? Well, if so, I can't help it: I'm a native speaker of
Korean]
(2) Some examples according to the same source:
# 많은 물고기들이 “떼를” 지어 산다 Many kinds of fish live in schools.
# 고등학교 때 우리는 “떼로” 몰려다녔다 In high school, we hung out in
big groups.
# 야생마 한 떼가 광활한 초원을 질주했다 A herd of wild horses galloped
on the vast grassland.
p.s.: I just happened to comment on #7, and right after saw your comment regarding some Korean word at #8. I hope you don’t mind.
#10,
That’s nice, yuna. Thanks!
Yuna,
Thanks – I knew of the 마리 used with native Korean numbers, but not the other one.
And Belair #11,
I didn’t see your comment until now – thanks for the information, too.
#11 again,
I should have taken the time to read your post before thanking you in #14 – your English is fine. Thanks again for the examples. I now can begin my translation of ‘Wild horses couldn’t drag me away/keep me away from it’ with the correct term – 야생마
My pleasure. I really like teaching Korean –
Regarding pronunciation,
First steps to avoid speaking like a caricature English speaking foreigner..
0. Ignore the stupid romanization introduced in 2002
1. Pronounce the consonant which starts a word e.g. ㄱ as a “soft K” instead of a “g”and ㅂ as a “soft P” instead of a b.
고구려 -> Koguryuh.
바보->Paboh.
강남->Kangnam
한강->Hangang
ㅋ and ㅍ are HARSH K and P respectively.
ㅅ is a soft airy S, don’t start with an airtight mouth shape lie one would in English -save it for ㅆ ..e.g. 사랑해요 = say it almost like you’re about to say “harangheyoh”, but add a dash of s. if you read sarangheyo as is it sounds more like 싸랑해요우.
2. Try to end the vowel ending as a single entity.
e.g. yo ending should have a more abrupt finish. Not 요우!
안녕하세요? -> Anyunghaseyoh? or Anyunghaseyuh?
In general try to steer away from the more than one-syllable-pronunciation of all the vowels in English language. Pronounce the vowels like the way 깍두기 (cubed radish pickles) are cut. Crisp and Clean.
IHBB,
If indeed there are few here who disagree, disappointed is the last thing I will be. And 개떼 똥파리들 is color blind.
yuna, if I must give it a meaning it would be more like “shit flies that act like a pack of dogs.”
I have to say, 똥파리 was a pretty decent movie. I wonder why they decided to translate the title into English as “Breathless” though.
http://www.cine21.com/Movies/Mov_Movie/movie_detail.php?id=26063
#16,
The advice is appreciated, but two years of Korean class took care of my terrible accent and five years of living in the ROK made it better, I should hope, and even though I don’t talk the Hangukmal every day anymore, I don’t think that I speak like a caricature, but that just could be my prideful yangnome attitude.
You do mean ‘…Korean-speaking foreigner…’ though, don’t you?
Actually, Digsby is just a Twitter client, much like Tweetdeck or other programs. The posts read “posted from Digsby” because that was the program used to post to Twitter.
I for one will miss @koreangov a lot.
That’s some interesting animal psychology.
Actually I meant to say foreigner from an English speaking country, as the Japanese when they speak Korean, for example, have different sets of common pronunciation mistakes, as is to be expected.
Well that was embarrassing… fixed.
Great Korean language tips, Yuna. Thanks.
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