Archive for May, 2008
Korean Pronunciation for English Words Posted by Transparent Language on May 22, 2008
I’ll have fries with that! “French fries 주세요 juseyo,” I said to the cashier at 버거 킹 beogeo king. Her only response was a confused look. I repeated myself. She tried to follow my line of vision to locate what I was looking at on the overhead menu. It was written in Korean, so I…
Hwaiting: ‘Fighting’ Posted by Transparent Language on May 22, 2008
Far from a battle cry, 화이팅 hwaiting is a commonly used word of encouragement, as well as a cheer. I’m told it made its way into Korean from its obvious English origin via the Japanese—and hence the unusual pronunciation. Language purists insist that it should be spelled 파이팅 paiting to reflect a closer approximation to…