Comments on: Fansubbing the Korean Language

By: aish

aish — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:38:56 +0000

Hey please translate the following text into english:
“URI KASARANGO SINKU, URAM MANIDA, DA CHUWA GEYO, FOGUSUPTA”

Please help me out!!

By: Chloe

Chloe — Sat, 22 May 2010 10:29:03 +0000

Ya, I know its not related, but i have a difficulty that I hope you guys can help me with.

I’m doing sum research on places in Seoul as I will be going there in a month’s time, so I noticed that the names of places in South Korea varies although they seemed to be the same place.
How can one place have two different names?

I was planning to go ‘Garden of morning calm’, (the film site of ‘You are Beautiful’) so i will need to go to a bus terminal to transfer to a local bus. But this bus terminal seemed to have two names or I might have mistaken and confuse with a totally different bus terminal??

Does Cheongpyeong bus terminal = Chungpyung bus terminal ??

Please get back to me on this .

By: Dubiaku

Dubiaku — Sun, 02 May 2010 21:15:10 +0000

It’s certainly reassuring to know that such thoughtful people are working on these subs. That is certainly not meant to debase the great contributions of other subber volunteers that do not have such a fine-tuned sense of language–we need all we can get. But language is a symbolic structure that is intended to convey meaning. And meaning is the point, not the words. This is so often forgotten by translators who try word-for-word translations that make absolutely no sense in the target language. The translation needs to transfer the meaning of the speaker’s utterance, as well as its emotional tone as much as that is possible. Literal translations fail at that miserably.

And I like the way that you choose to use Korean terms like “Unni” in places where there is no exact equivalent. The meaning is lost otherwise, and readers are well advised to actually learn something about the culture they are watching if they want to fully appreciate the drama.

Keep up the good work. Even in places where you have uneasy feelings that you have made mistakes or chosen the wrong meaning, the fact that you tried comes through and actually makes the meaning more clear in that way, strangely enough. Thanks very much.

By: sajor

sajor — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:19:24 +0000

great read…good insights..
it is always better to watch kdrama in its original language and then subbed rather than dubbed in english (or tagalog for my case)..although i cannot understand korean, i get to hear what they’re saying and how they’re saying it, at least, through this, i imbibe some of korean culture and language, and there’s a great chance that there will be lesser conversations in the kdramas that will be lost in dubbing or subbing..

By: beki - Chuayo - I like you?

beki - Chuayo - I like you? — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 01:38:07 +0000

Han Kyul from Coffee Prince: Just once, I’ll say this just once so listen up. I like you – whether you’re a man or an alien…

He likes her? Just like he likes coffee?

I think “Chua e” is closer in meaning to “I want you”

By: justin

justin — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:34:17 +0000

hey, question… what does the korean word JUNG mean in the context of love?

By: Elektra

Elektra — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:51:09 +0000

Hi I would like to ask the drama My Girl, Yoo Rin’s fav sentence “you will be blessed” ,how to say it in romanized korean?

By: rhianti

rhianti — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 07:58:31 +0000

I’m totally agree with you, because my culture resembled Korea also. I Javanese, one of the ethnic groups in Indonesia.For instance, our language knew the language stage as in the case of Korean, we also used the term of address for older people, even younger et cetera person. Well, indeed occasionally had difficulty explaining this matter in English. That’s why I prefer to watch the Korean film through the internet, the available translation in the local TV station made me not comfortable.
So, I really appreciated what was done by the team fansubbing, especially S2… big big thanks, and don’t be bored helping

By: bobacha

bobacha — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 06:17:23 +0000

very well written !! and i agree 100% that oppa/hyung/unni/noona/ajusshi/ajumma, etc should be left as such because if translated to english, it will lose the cultural / familiarity between the characters..
Years ago when I first started watching korean movies, I was confused when oppa was translated to “brother..” for scenes between lovers.. it felt so weird watching them. And then in another movie, I remember it was translated to “Honey”.. which I think was not appropriate either…

By: ttoo66

ttoo66 — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:26:56 +0000

hi javabeans,

thanks for the post. it’s very interesting
i’ve become more & more interested in the ways of translating from one lang to another.
right now, i’m studying translation from english to arabic as base and from arabic to eng. and i found that there is a huge gap between the 2 languages especially their expressions. it’s rarally to find an arabic expression have an accurate equivalent in eng.
however, through watching and translating some korean dramas (specially ones that translate literally to eng) i found that korean lang has many similar expressions to arabic ones. for example, the expression “rolled yourself up and leave” has an accurate slang equivalent in the arabic lang which surprised me coz korean and arabic culture are far away from each other and their languages have a very different grammatical rules (from which i notice). therefore, some dramas become more interested than others becoz of its literally translation for expressions like my name is kim sam soon.
since that i’ve become jelous from other student in the korean/arabic translation department.

for translate “oppa,” “ajassi,” and so on i quite agree with you in write it as it is in source lang coz it’s just for fun and it’s a way to know other culture. however in other fields like novels, in my opinion, it’s better to translate these depending in the target language’s culture. in arabic, for example, translator should translate “oppa” depending in the context. if it’s blood relative, it’ll be translate to “brother” or “cousin”. if it’s her boyfriend, it’ll be “honey” and so on.

translation is a fascinating field but a tiresome one.

thanks for u and other translators for your hard work to provide us an awesome subs