thelingodingo

[thelingodingo]

Detailed Translations of K-pop Variety Shows: Stray Kids SKZ Family Returns #1

Often when watching content in another language the specific nuances and meanings don't get translated as it is too difficult and/or time consuming. Sometimes I've noticed that translations for kpop variety shows often entirely skip certain pieces of dialogue or some of the on-screen captions(?) put in by the editors. As these variety shows are Korean there's also a lot of cultural things I've noticed that don't get conveyed even though it can be really interesting or funny.

SOOO I thought I could start a series where I intricately translate and explain the specific language nuances of different kpop variety shows (if people are interested) since actually knowing the language makes watching these shows a million times more entertaining.

And so for the first part I decided to do Stray Kids' variety show SKZ CODE and their chuseok special Family Returns! This is just the video I thought would be pretty entertaining to explain but please give me suggestions from any group!!!!

(this post is in chronological order btw so just follow along with the video)

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The episode starts with changbin immediately flirting with hot girl i.n. lmao. but basically when i.n. tells changbin to "get away" he specifically says 떨어져 (ddeol-uh-jyeo) which in korean means both "to get away" and "to fall/drop".

so changbin asks if she likes "getting away" (falling) and also asks "do you happen to like falling?" (the subtitles say "do you like getting away?") in order to slide into the entire "did it hurt when you fell from heaven?" joke.

this is why i.n. says 내가 떨어트려줘? (naega ddeol-uh-teu-lyeo-jwo) which actually directly translates to "should I drop you?" but the subtitles just say "do you want me to do it for you?" which doesnt seem to make much sense within the context of the clip.

i think the "should i drop you?" sentence makes more comedic sense in korean than english. in korean it gives off a much more threatening vibe thats kinda like "do u want me to pick u up and drop u from the sky myself?"

since this is a family skit theres obviously a lot of familial roles in the episode which is interesting since korean is a language that has an extremely complex system for family titles.

like in english theres uncle, aunt, sister in law, grandma, etc etc but languages like korean have extremely specific titles for extremely specific family roles. this website has a pretty good explanation of them if u wanna know more.

but anyways because of that even most koreans get very confused with what titles should be used (and i also get very confused...)

which brings me to my point of changbin and chan calling i.n. "noona" even though she is technically their aunt??? my knowledge of korean family titles doesn't go far enough to know if theres a specific title used for your paternal uncle's wife's younger sister but im assuming in the case of the skit it's just more sensible for changbin and chan to refer to i.n. as "noona" since shes a gen z hot girl lmaooo i honestly dont know (i have like 2 more examples of this family title stuff coming up btw)

ALSO there is a mistranslation when changbin says "you look even better than an angel". he actually says "you're more like the devil than an angel..." so i have no idea where the translator got the "you look even better than an angel" sentence from cuz thats not what he says lmao. (i even checked the spanish subtitles to make sure i wasnt tripping and yea the spanish subtitles got it right)

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during lino and seungmin's opening clip seungmin says "we still have to raise yongbok" and lino actually replies with "of course we must raise our child" and not "she's our daughter" so thats another mistranslation.

when seungmin tells lino to "be quick" when linking hands he actually says 빨리한방에해라 (bballi-hanbang-eh-hae-ra) (it kinda translates as "do it quickly at once") which i particularly thought would be a comedic nuance that isnt conveyed in english. basicallly in english in order to command someone/be imperative you would just be like "do it!" "be quiet!" etc but in korean u can intensify a command even further by saying "hae-ra" instead of just "hae".

so seungmin could have said "bballi-hanbang-eh-hae" but the specific addition of "ra" at the end makes the sentence sound much more threatening and intimidating which is why i feel like the translation "be quick" is a bit lacking

~~~~

when chan says "im older than you" to yongbok im pretty sure yall can tell that he's actually saying "im your oppa" which is basically him establishing his seniority i guess (and yes oppa etc is used between cousins as well)

chan then asks "why are you talking down to me?" which is such a weirdass translation but i totally get why they translated it like that since what he actually asks is "why are you using ban-mal?"

ban-mal means informal speech whereas jondae-mal means formal speech. and as u may already know, korean (unlike english) has different levels of speaking depending on formality. this and this wikipedia article explains the concept decently.

but basically chan is telling little yongbok to speak in a formal register towards him since little yongbok was speaking informally and chan is older than her

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when han asks "im your brother?" in response to seungmin saying "hyung" its hard to tell if he actually didn't know that their characters were brothers or if he didnt know that his character is specifically the older brother of seungmin but either way its hilarious. based off the connotations of how he asked the question 내가 형이야? (naega hyungiya) im assuming its the latter tho.

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changbin describes chan as a 근수저 (geun-su-jeo) which i actually had to look up cuz its slang lol. but it directly translates to "muscle spoon". its literally just the "born with a silver spoon" expression but in combination with the word "muscle", so changbin is basically saying that chan was naturally born with a strong body / a determination to workout.

when changbin asks han if he is also a "geun-su-jeo" han replies with "i cant even lift a spoon" as a pun which makes a lot more sense once u know that "geun-su-jeo" derives from the silver spoon expression. loll such a dad joke

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I wont go into detail but regarding the informal/formal speech stuff I mentioned earlier:

basically even though they're a "family" since theres people that dont know each other as well and also because of age gaps etc you'll often find certain family members in korean families to still talk to each other in a very formal and respectful register (such as in the case of in-laws)

so i just wanted to point out that if u know korean enough to be able to differentiate between the different speech levels u can actually see a lot more into the deeper nuances between the different characters' relationships' and their dynamics

eg. changbin speaks formally to his i.n. noona while i.n. speaks informally to changbin, little chan speaks formally to all the adults, father han speaks formally to hot girl i.n. etc etc etc

(this obviously applies just in general in korean and not only this video...like seriously you'll be able to understand the dynamics between different group members and different k-celebrities so much more if u understand korean speech levels/honorifics)

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this next thing was such a simple thing to translate idk why the translator didnt just translate it in the subtitles

when changbin hits i.n. noona during her self-introduction she actually says "that hurts you punk!" (아파 이자식아! apa i-jashik-ah) and not just "that hurts!" i just found it funny cuz the way i.n. says it is so visceral and reminded me of a mom scolding her child lmao

~~~~

as mentioned above, father han speaks formally to hot girl i.n. but then continues speaking formally to changbin when asking his age which is kinda funny since it basically indicates that han briefly forgot about the skit and that he is supposed to be changbin's father (therefore he didnt need to speak formally to him). because of this the caption during the clip even says [politely asking his son's age] cuz even the editors were like ?? lmaoo

btw im not saying that han speaks formally to changbin but in the context of the clip han was speaking more formally to the adult characters since the introductions segment was kinda like an interview format if u get what i mean

(all the members usually speak informally to each other except sometimes when talking to bangchan)

~~~~

another example of the confusing korean family terms is when lino is scolding changbin

changbin says that "she gets it from your side!" (a slightly more direct translation would be "she's similar to your side, auntie!") and the caption above says [wrong term].

this is because although in english lino is simply just changbin's aunt, in korean, auntie lino is specifically supposed to be called "sookmo" (숙모) but changbin accidentally calls her "imo" (이모).

both sookmo and imo mean aunt in english but sookmo is specifically referring to your parent's brother's wife whereas imo is referring to your mother's sister. thus, auntie lino is changbin's sookmo, not imo.

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another example of the nuances in formal/informal speech is when lino gets everybody's attention for yongbok's introduction. the reason why the caption says [not asking but threatening] is because the first time he tells everybody to pay attention he says it very formally and respectfully but then quickly switches up to informal and rude. obviously, just from lee know's facial expression and tone u can tell that he is going from nice to threatening but it seems to be the specific switch from formal to informal speech that gets the laugh from hyunjin.

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i personally like this next example because it's suchhhhh a common phrase my mom uses lmaooo

when chan says "i dont know" when changbin asks him "how old are you now?" and the reaction from changbin saying "do you know anything?" was sooo iconic to me cuz its a really common phrase koreans use when they ask another person a simple question or a question that the person should know the answer to but answers with "idk"

it directly translates to "what do you know?" (아는게뭐야!) but gives off the feeling of "bruhhh u literally dont know anything wtff"

~~~~

ok this one i find really interesting

when lino does his introduction he introduces himself as "Lee Minho" which seems completely normal in english but watching the video u can see that the others (specifically hyunjin and han) are confused. this is because the surname Lee is actually just "Ee" in korean. like theres absolutely no L sound, for some reason its just romanized with an L but its pronounced eee.

so when auntie lino introduces himself he actually pronounced the L sound and literally said Lee Minho

now in south korea the Lee surname is pronounced with no L but in north korea they DO pronounce it with the L sound.

which explains why the other members had such a ??? reaction to auntie lino introducing herself as Lee Minho.

Han even asks "are you from the north?" which the subtitles translate as "where are you from?" and the caption says [crash landing on you]

the entire exchange was so hilarious i was disappointed it wouldnt be conveyed to the non korean speaking audience

~~~~

another translation error is when mama lino tells yongbok to "close your eyes and open your nose" and the caption says [if you want to breathe].

he actually says "cover your eyes and close your nose" and the caption actually says [if you want to breathe then open your nose]

im assuming the translator just had a mix-up between translating what lino said and what the editor's caption said but damn i was so confused the first time i read the english subtitles

(but also what does lino mean by closing the nose??????)

~~~~

anotherrrr example of family titles is when han tells auntie lino "lee know, dont tell them we met yesterday". in the subtitles it shows han referring to lino as just "Lee Know" but you can hear him say "je-su-ssi" (제수씨).

je-su is what you call your younger brother's wife and the "ssi" is an honorific korean name suffix that is similar to mr/mrs/ms.

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the last family title example i'll do is what auntie lino refers to mama hyunjin.

now most people know that hyung means older brother and is used between males but in reality "hyungnim" is actually used for multiple different positions in the family tree.

since mama hyunjin is auntie lino's husband's brother's wife, lino refers to hyunjin as "hyungnim" which is the correct title for that position. "hyungnim" is also used to refer to your husband's older sister.

~~~~

i'll finish off with a proverb that lino says which is 병주고 약주고 (byeong-jugo yak-jugo) which translates to "giving a disease then giving medicine"

the subtitles just translate it as "like illness and medicine" but the proverb basically means to give both positive and negative emotion at the same time or to do harm towards someone and then help them.

~~~~

i stopped at the 16 minute mark cuz after that its just games and translating all that madness would be insane

i was thinking of doing a full translation of the descriptions that show up in the bottom left and right corners for each character at the beginning of the video since the subtitles dont completelyyyyy translate them but omg im too lazy yall sorry

theres also comedic nuance that isnt translated properly for han and hyunjin's clip at the start but im also too lazy for that

furthermore, theres actually a lot more caption things that weren't fully translated in the subtitles but im too lazy to translate each one

THIS POST IS ALREADY LONG ENOUGH YALL I CANT INCLUDE ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING 😭 (maybe i can do a part 2 with all the stuff im skipping in this post if yall want)

[thelingodingo]

The Humour of Korean Formality

Korean, like other languages such as Japanese, is a language that has speech levels. Which means there are different levels of speech that are used depending on the formality.

As far as I'm aware speech levels don't exist in most languages and even in languages that do differentiate between informal and formal speech it is usually just those two forms.

On the other hand, Korean has 7 levels of speech along with honorific and non-honorific forms to make a total of 14 combinations of speech. In the video above, the politician is angrily speaking which ends with him mistakenly ending his sentence informally. Because of this, he belatedly fixes his mistake by adding "yo" at the very end which is what makes everyone laugh.

He uses the haeyo-che which is relatively polite but lowly formal. I think this pretty much makes sense since he's angry so although he still needs to keep some decorum and etiquette he's not gonna go all out hapsipsio-che.

[thelingodingo]

I loveeeeee the way languages that tend to not like ending words on a consonant sound.

Probably the most common example would be the Japanese language and how people with that accent tend to pronounce English words "cutely" due to the lack of final consonants such as "kito-kato" instead of Kit Kat.

But it's actually seen in so many other languages such as Korean and how a lot of Koreans tend to pronounce English words that end with an S sound with a "-seu" at the end such as "ju-seu" for juice or "bus-seu" for bus.

I've also heard vowels be added onto the end of English words in languages like Italian and Brazilian Portuguese when said in their respective accent and I think it's so interesting how some languages have their own "rules" of what kind syllables are allowed to be created with vowels and consonants in certain positions.

I love accents!

(In the case of Japanese and Korean it also leads to a weird amount of fetishization while unknowingly mocking speakers of the language but that's a discussion for another time...)

[thelingodingo]

WOOZI'S BUSAN DIALECT IN THE NEW GOING SEVENTEEN YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS REPRESENTTTTTTTT I FEEL SO NOSTALGIC

this is gonna be such good content for future posts heheheheh

[thelingodingo]

Korean Titles of BTS Songs

Remember when a bunch of fans were asking Jungkook about BTS' song 'Paradise' and he had no idea what they were talking about since the Korean name of the song is different from the English?

Well, that's what I thought I could make a post about since it's very common across multiple of their songs!

A lot of the times in Kpop, the Korean name of a song has a completely different translation than the English name so I wanted to start a series explaining the more intricate details of the translations.

So first up here's a list of explanations of a couple BTS Korean song titles:

Paradise = 낙원 : this is just a regular direct translation

Fire = 불타오르네 : I think this Korean song title is great enough to have a post of its own due to how useful it would be to Korean learners as it requires knowledge of multiple aspects of Korean to truly understand. In English, it could still be translated as "fire" but it definitely holds more meaning in the original Korean. 불 (bul) means fire and the verb 불타오르다 (bul ta o reu da) means "to be burning/aflamed". The 네 (ne) part of the title 불타오르네 (bul ta o reu ne) is a grammar particle that expresses admiration, surprise, etc. So all together the song title is sort of saying something along the lines of "oh look, it's burning up in flames" I guess??? It's hard to try and explain the nuance in English.

Telepathy = 잠시 : this title translates directly to "for a moment"

Boy with Luv = 작은 것들을 위한 시 : beautifully means "a poem for the small things" which I think would've made a great English title too

Go Go = 고민보다 GO : this translates to "rather than worrying about it, go"

Dis-ease = 병 : this literally translates to disease in Korean but apparently some media(?) thought it translated to 'bottle' (like a plastic water bottle) which I guess makes sense since it's the same word in Korean but lmao I thought that was funny.

I do like BTS but I'm not an Army so if any fans happen to know any deeper information that may further elaborate on the reasoning for these title changes in English please feel free to add on!

If you would like a Part 2 or have any specific questions then just ask!

I know I've been away for a very long time to any of my followers that keep up with my posts (thank u btw) and I am trying to get back into posting but it has been an extremely busy year for me :(

[thelingodingo]

There is no such thing as "hyungie"

If you're someone whos into kpop then you may or may not already know about words such as "hyung", "noona", etc

And so you may also know that in Korean there are name honorifics that can be attached after a person's name between people who are close to each other. these honorifics are "ah" (if the name ends with a consonant) and "ya" (if the name ends with a vowel) and can only be used age horizontally or downwards. (eg. Dokyeom-ah, Mingyu-ya)

another suffix for names ending in a consonant is "-ie" (eg. Jungkookie)

BUT something that is not really known among fans is that this "ie" sound is so much more than just a name ending, it's still an actual korean word. it can mean "two", "teeth", "this", etc just like how in english "lead" and "lead" are completely different things.

by far the most important reason for this post is that "ie" is a Korean subject particle along with the subject particle "ga" meaning that it is used within Korean grammar to mark the subject of the sentence, a completely different thing than the name vocative case mentioned above.

so whenever any korean speaking person is saying "hyungie" they are NOT saying it with the purpose of being affectionate or cutesy in that moment, they are literally just speaking korean the way its supposed to be spoken grammatically. the word "hyungie" itself does not exist in any way in Korean.

now if the person happened to be saying, for example, "Namjoonie hyung" or "Namjoonie hyungie" then it would make sense since the name suffix is actually on the name, not the honorific title (again, "ie" on a word like "hyung" is a subject particle).

I know that non korean speaking kpop fans obviously won't know about this part of the language unless they've studied the language themselves and in no way am i trying to shit on anybody for this.

but i really wanted to make a post on it cuz i've barely seen any other koreans talk about it before while im over here everyday seeing comments like "omg he loves his hyungie soooo much 😍😍😍" and everytime im thinking "??"

theres actually many more examples of the language being somewhat misused/misunderstood but thats all I'll say today 😫

(also im not saying that kpop idols don't love their fellow members its just that "ie" isn't always used the way some fans think it is)

[thelingodingo]

Japanese First-Person Pronouns

In English, there is only one way to say "I", which is obviously "I". In Japanese, theres a literal plethora of ways to say "I". Here's a few of the more common ones and their basic usages!

note - as always, theres more detail and context that surrounds the language. these are just simple descriptions.

Watashi: can be used in both formal and informal situations. usually used by both women and men in formal contexts and only women in casual contexts.

Atashi: informal and is mainly used by women. a slang(?) version of watashi.

Ore: very masculine and basically only used by men. is informal and can also show closeness when used to friends and family. can also be rude when used otherwise.

Boku: can be both formal and informal, kinda like business casual. used by males but common in young boys specifically. has a humble feeling to it. if used by women (which is uncommon irl) it can apparently give off tomboyish/feminist vibes?

there's definitely more such as jibun, uchi, ware, oira, etc but i think these 4 are good for now!

[thelingodingo]

Hiiii, do u happen to know where to read the haikyu manga in Japanese? Sorry to bother u but I was wondering who on Tumblr might know and u came to mind

Helloo anon,

so I assume you would like to read it for free, in that case there are some legal websites in which you can read some chapters for free (and some illegal ones but those are harder to come by).

a legal website where you can read the first 35 chapters for free is: mechacomic (link embedded)

there are also some apps you might be able to download such as U-NEXT but they're either paid for or only have a free trial.

thats all I'm really able to find at the moment so I hope it was useful!

thanks for the ask :D

[thelingodingo]

The Fascinating Translation of When Bakugou Says "Deku trusts you"

(this is something that was already discussed within the fandom to an extent a long time ago but I wanted to bring it back because its just so interesting)

In chapter 284 of MHA, Bakugou says "Deku trusts you with his life, but..." which is the official VIZ translation of the panel. Before this, many fan translations of the chapter came out with different translations of this sentence due to the fact that the original sentence in Japanese itself is a tad difficult to properly translate into English.

In Japanese, he says, "デクは 信じ切ってっけど さァ" (deku wa shinji kitte kkedo saa)

I could break down the sentence but im very very lazy so if anybody would like that then please just say so.

But basically with the way that Japanese grammar works the sentence could be translated in 4 different ways!

"Deku trusts me, but..."

2. "I trust Deku, but..."

3. "You trust Deku, but..."

4. "Deku trusts you, but..."

Meaning that the reader of this sentence must be able to know the actual meaning based on context, as Japanese is one of the many high context cultures and pronoun avoidance languages.

Because of this, many fan translations in English (as well as some other languages) ended up translating the sentence in a way that creates an entirely different meaning.

[thelingodingo]

in english, Vernon's full name is Vernon Chwe and S.Coups' full name is Seungcheol Choi.

What I often forget about these two is that they actually have the exact same Korean surname, just spelled differently in English.

최 is spelled as "Choi" in the standard romanization but I assume Vernon's family decided to actually spell out the surname more accurately as 최 is officially spelled like "choi" but it's really pronounced like "chwe"

so although Vernon and S.Coups may seem like they have different last names in the latin alphabet, they actually do not

maybe this is something thats really obvious to fans lmaooo im sorry

i just thought it was so interesting cuz damn I never really thought much about it

btw their last name is the 4th most common Korean surname (after Kim, Lee, Park) so its definitely not surprising or strange that they have the same last name and it also does not mean they are related in any way :p

correction: his real name is Hansol Chwe lmao i forgot Vernon is his middle name

[thelingodingo]

on the other hand, in BTS it's verrrrry easy to tell which members are older and which members are younger since they like to keep a strict hierarchy of age and respect between the members

usually after watching a few episodes on a kpop group i can easily tell which members are older and which are younger but THAT SHIT DOES NOT APPLY TO SEVENTEEEEEEEEEN since everyone just SPEAKS BANMAL without even using honorifics.....HONORIFICS!!!!! one of the most important aspects of korean social conventions! they use them so rarely i eventually just have to google their ages smh

[thelingodingo]

watched the haikyuu movie today in a quite empty movie theatre

i definitely enjoyed it and thought it was appropriately hyped but am i absolutely ecstatic, jumping off the walls, and tweaking from how good it is???? i dont think so. and that's ok since obviously it's just an animated movie about volleyball and it told the story it was supposed to tell :)

[thelingodingo]

T-V Distinction

I remember there was once a time when I thought T-V distinction was referencing TV as in television....

Like i thought it was some sort of linguistic concept that had to do with how people speak differently on the news or something lmao

and then one day I realized it's literally just a name to refer to languages in which they have pronouns based off the latin tu and vos

such as the french tu and vous

and the spanish tu and ustedes?? vosotros?? i'm not a spanish speaker im probably very wrong sorry

i dont think many people know that english actually used to have a difference in formality of saying "you"

the "thou" you see in english used to actually be the informal "you" (singular)

[thelingodingo]

learned french in school for 7 years while living in a country that has french as an official language yet i still don't get shiiiiit

did some on and off studying of spanish but then i just got reminded of all the things i struggled with french

been learning mandarin for 2 years and i'm slowly getting to that language learning limbo stage where everything is just "wtf this doesn't make sense"

but then i realize it's the exact same struggles in any language when it comes to knowing the cultural nuances, irregular grammar, fixed expressions, etc

[thelingodingo]

heavily agreeeeee

i'd like to add that i've definitely seen some people who use this style of english-language humor to reply to tweets made by Japanese voice actors of anime and it's just so confusing...like how in the world do they think a person who most likely has a limited knowledge of the english language will react to some of the crazy weird-to-translate things they say 😭?

(i think this may also apply to some kpop fans as well from what I recall seeing)

my apologies for a mini rant ahead in regards to the hq fandom (twitter in particular):

I've been seeing an influx of this recently, but why is the fandom normalizing quote retweeting art from (predominantly) Japanese and Korean artists when the English language does not translate well on their end?

I'm not going to show screenshots or @ anyone, however I've been noticing a lot of people in the fandom recently quote retweeting with English words and humor and it personally gets on my nerve or needs to stop because English language and humor does not translate well.

There was a discussion on this circulating years before but a lot of Japanese and Korean artists get confused or scared when they read quote retweets because it's full of words such as "this art is so good, I need to k*ll myself" or similar phrases. I'm not saying that people are not allowed to speak like this, they are certainly because I do so as well as you see in my tags. HOWEVER it translates horrendously when it comes to artists who don't or only have a bit of knowledge in regards to English because they won't understand or take your words literally, and I just wish more people in the fandom realize this TvT

Regardless of how old the art is or whether or not there's a chance the artist will see those quotes, I think it's basic etiquette and respect to not quote retweet with English words and humor with art coming from Japanese and Korean artists in the first place.

Usually the best way to interact with them is through saying kind words in their language, using simple English words or just using emojis to quote retweet, but never the kind of behavior a good majority of the haikyu fandom are displaying right now

[thelingodingo]

something I noticed about Minghao from what I've seen of him is that he pronounces "China" in Korean more like how it would be said in Chinese.

In Korean, China is 중국 (joong-guk)

In Chinese, China is 中国 (zhong-guo)

maybe i'm hearing things but it sounds like he combines the two together and says something along the lines of "zhong-guk" and his Chinese accent definitely pops out more

i've never seen anybody call him out on it though (even though he pronounces it like that on variety shows too)

its overall very endearing and cool

[thelingodingo]

there was a supposed-to-be multi part post I made that I definitely did not clarify/go deep enough into which I realize made the post come off in a very tacky and simple-minded way🤦‍♀️. i apologize for offense and will make sure future posts are much more mindfully structured. 🙇