{"id":3864,"date":"2016-10-05T23:10:15","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T23:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/?p=3864"},"modified":"2017-12-04T09:07:46","modified_gmt":"2017-12-04T14:07:46","slug":"that-was-awkward-north-and-south-korean-language-barriers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/that-was-awkward-north-and-south-korean-language-barriers\/","title":{"rendered":"That Was Awkward: North and South Korean Language Barriers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There is a very good chance you will never meet, let alone speak Korean to, a North Korean (\ubd81\ud55c\uad6d\uc778). But if you did meet,\u00a0say, a defector or diplomat, chances are you would test out your Korean (\ud55c\uad6d\uc5b4) in order to build a trust and strike common ground, right? \u00a0But would they understand your\u00a0<em>South <\/em>Korean?<\/p>\n<p>Last year, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/north-and-south-korean-language-split-can-they-understand-each-other\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">I wrote an article highlighting some of the vocabulary differences, mainly focusing on the different dialects.<\/a>\u00a0There are a number of subtle differences between North Korean speech (\ubd81\ud55c\ub9d0) versus (\ub300) South Korean (\ub0a8\ud55c\ub9d0).<\/p>\n<p>For example, a common ice-breaker between foreigners ( \uc678\uad6d\uc778) and younger Korean children is a game of\u00a0<em>rock, paper,\u00a0<\/em><i>scissors<\/i>, which has a group play version, meaning it is essential to learn how to walk away. In South Korea, it is called \uac00\uc704\ubc14\uc704\ubcf4; but in North Korea, it is literally called <em>scissors fist<\/em>, \uac00\uc704\uc8fc\uba39, a bit of a harsher tone and meaning.<\/p>\n<p>Some more interesting differences you might run across during your humanitarian mission:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Don&#8217;t ask if they want a\u00a0<em>donut (\ub3c4\ub11b)\u00a0<\/em>because in NK it is called\u00a0<em>spindle<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0<em>ring<\/em><em>\u00a0bread<\/em><em>\u00a0(<\/em>\uac00\ub77d\uc9c0\ube75)<\/li>\n<li>If you want to know about their access to food, protein (\ub2e8\ubc31\uc9c8) interestingly literally means\u00a0<em>small eggs (\uacc4\ub780\uc18c) <\/em>in North Korean<\/li>\n<li>Should you want to buy them a caramel macchiato during the conversation, caramel (\uce90\ub7ec\uba5c) has the less appealing translation of &#8220;oily candy&#8221; (\uae30\ub984 \uc0ac\ud0d5)<\/li>\n<li>On that note, maybe don&#8217;t offer them a sausage (\uc18c\uc2dc\uc9c0) because in North Korean it literally translates as &#8220;measly boiled meat&#8221; (\uc0b6\uc740\uace0\uae30\uc21c\ub300)<\/li>\n<li>At this point, if you want to avoid the misunderstandings by using sign language (\uc218\ud654), you are actually using &#8220;finger words&#8221;\u00a0(\uc190\uac00\ub77d\ub9d0)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And sometimes the difference in vowels and the resulting new&#8211;or old, depending on how you look at it&#8211;spelling can make some hilarious outcomes. For example, &#8220;wife&#8221;, or\u00a0ah-nae (\uc544\ub0b4), in North Korea<em>\u00a0<\/em>is\u00a0<em>an-hae <\/em>(\uc548\ud574), which can also be understood to mean, &#8220;Do not do.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Even giving a present, <em>sun-mul<\/em>\u00a0<em>(\uc120\ubb3c)<\/em> can be difficult. In North Korea, <em>sun-mul<\/em> is reserved only for the Dear Leaders, both living and dead. And if that gift was\u00a0&#8220;Made in America&#8221; (<em>mije<\/em>, <em>\ubbf8\uc81c<\/em>), for North Koreans, <em>mije<\/em>\u00a0means &#8220;American Imperialist&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>It is said that only about a quarter of North Koreans can understand South Koreans perfectly. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=PZfpn7Rus74\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">This led to the creation of\u00a0Univoca<\/a>, an app that translates unknown South Korean words into North Korean. The app has about 3,600 unique translations.<\/p>\n<p>However, learning Korean in North Korea is just about the same as anywhere around the globe:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Learning North Korean in the DPRK (North Korea), Pyongyang\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DRZvwaObOXc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Undoubtedly faced with some kind of language barrier, even when speaking to them in their own language, I say just go for it; or just nod and smile and rely on body language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"233\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2016\/10\/king-sejong-the-great-350x233.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2016\/10\/king-sejong-the-great-350x233.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2016\/10\/king-sejong-the-great-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2016\/10\/king-sejong-the-great-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2016\/10\/king-sejong-the-great.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>There is a very good chance you will never meet, let alone speak Korean to, a North Korean (\ubd81\ud55c\uad6d\uc778). But if you did meet,\u00a0say, a defector or diplomat, chances are you would test out your Korean (\ud55c\uad6d\uc5b4) in order to build a trust and strike common ground, right? \u00a0But would they understand your\u00a0South Korean? Last&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/that-was-awkward-north-and-south-korean-language-barriers\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":3868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,6,2871],"tags":[409417,207528,410391,410390,409150],"class_list":["post-3864","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-grammar","category-korean-language","tag-differences-between-korean-languages","tag-hangul","tag-king-sejong","tag-north-korean-hangul","tag-north-korean-language"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3864"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5151,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3864\/revisions\/5151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}