Before we talk, tell me everything, or we can't talk!

안녕하세요?  In Between Soju를 읽어서 감사합니다. 잘 지내세요?
Hello. Thanks for reading In Between Soju. How are you doing?
(Annyeong haseyo? In Between Soju-leul il geo seo kam sa ham nida. Jal ji nae seh yo?)

My Korean vocabulary board.  I write words I'm studying here
then hope they enter my mind with a combination of staring
...well, just a lot of staring

Disclaimer!  Lots of Korean follows!  And just for fun, I'm going to phonetically translate the Korean so you at home can follow along!  There will also be exciting speculation between language and culture!  If you'd rather go back to watching internet memes or whatever it is you do online, please click the following link!  Or if you just want to really waste time properly, you can do that here!


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Anyone still here?  Alright!

그럼 저는 시작할거예요...


So, when you meet a Korean for the first time especially in a social situation, if you're a man, you will be asked the following things especially if the person you're talking to is also a man.

1) What's your name?
2) Where are you from?
3) What is your job?
4) Excuse me, how old are you?
5) Do you have a girlfriend?
    5a [if answer to 5 is yes]) Oh, is she pretty/Korean?
    5b [if answer to 5 is no]) WHY NOT?! 


This barrage of questions will usually be qualified by the statement "you are so handsome" thereafter (yes, men do this to each other)

One thing that strikes a Western person quickly is how obsessed Koreans are with age.  And for good reason, because if they don't know how old you are, they will have no idea how to speak to you in Korean.  Communication actually becomes impossible until age, or other social standing, is established.  I will explain.

I like to 먹다

Here's the Korean word for eat: 먹다 (mok-da)
And here's a sentence meaning I eat rice: 저는 밥을 먹어요 (jahneun babeul mogahyo)

Easy right?  No.  That sentence presupposes that I already know how old you are (older than me) or that we're new acquaintances.  Now, if we were of similar age, or we are good friends now, I can speak to you like this:

나는 밥을 먹어 (Naneun babeul mogah).  I get to change the "I" from 저 to 나 and I drop the 요 which makes it less formal.  So there's formal, and not formal, easy one might think?

If the situation is you are older than me and/or I respect you, the sentence changes to
저는 밥을 먹으세요 (Jahneun babeul mogahsehyo)

If the situation is I don't know how old you are at all, or what your social standing is, or I know one or both of those things but I want to be deferential then its
저는 밥을 먹습니다 (Jahneun babeul mogsumnida)

And then all of these situations have their respective permutations in the past and future tenses!

The point is here that without knowing age, a dialogue in Korean becomes impossible.  Age is critically important in Korea, and you see it here reflected in their language.  A man must nearly always be older than a women in a dating situation (fairly normal in the West, but nearly compulsory in Korea).  Food is served according to who is the oldest and youngest, a point that I've touched on here.  Age can even determine trustworthiness and inherent personal worth.  While in English, one might use a different vocabulary or use/omit slang or colloquialisms based on the person you're talking with, because age isn't formally established at the outset of a conversation, one uses their best judgement in the situation and proceeds accordingly but in Korean age formally determines how one speaks, and is formally established at the beginning of a meeting so that a conversation can actually take place.

Another example is that among any group of people of similar ages, someone has to be the oldest person.  This needs to be established because in Korea, you're not allowed to say the name of the person if they're older than you.  And the words are different by gender!

Men -> 형 older brother (hyeong) 누나 older sister (noo na)
Women -> 오빠 older brother (oh bba) 어니older sister (ah ni)

And even in the case of twins, one of the twins has to be born before the other.  So the younger will always address the older by one of those four words, depending on the situation.

But even more important than age is social standing.  And this is where you can perhaps read into the mind of how Korean culture works.

My girlfriend, who is Korean, teaches me Korean about once a week.  Thankfully, she speaks incredible English.  She was correcting my writing and used a form of a verb I didn't understand.  The verb was 오다 (oh da) meaning to come.  I had transcribed "When is our friend coming here?"

언제 진구가 여기에 와? (onjeh chinguga yahgieh wa)

To which she slightly modified to:

언제 진구가 여기에 오니? (onjeh chinguga yahgieh oh nee)

The translated into English, it is an identical sentence in terms of direct meaning.  But the change from 와 to 오니 is that 와 is 'standard' and 오니 is 'literally another option to say the same thing to a younger person or somebody that you are close with but if you want to say 와 go right ahead it's totally the same anyway because you're going to use 와 and not 와요 in the same situation'

But!

She studies English formally with a friend of mine in town.  She explained that she would use 오니 with me, but never with our friend.  Our friend is two years younger than she is, but she would never use 오니 with her because she is her teacher.  Even in a social setting, not a class setting, she would never use 오니 with her because social standing supersedes all, even age.  Language is so tied into the culture that without asking those string of questions I outlined earlier above, communication becomes impossible.  They are so critically important, but whether language reflects the culture or the culture reflects the language is a post for another time. Powered by WebRing.