(Untitled)

[ginger_kitty]

As an assignment for one of my linguistics courses, we're to choose a language we're not particularly familiar with. Though I intend to specialize in East Asian Languages, I have not yet begun formal instruction in Korean. I am able to read hangul and I understand basic grammar, but my vocabulary is severely lacking, and I probably have less

Comments

[k0dama]

Stringing together a bunch of Korean words in an English sentence structure would befuddle most Koreans. We also don't have any articles, so you could try to translate "the" or "an" in, which won't make any sense oO

Especially something like "Who is the person that is hugging the dog?"
In the Korean sentence, "who" goes at the end of the sentence with the question marker (just like Chinese): 애완견을 안고 있는 사람은 누구입니까?

[ginger_kitty]

I'm aware of the structure of the language and the differences between English and Korean.
This assignment is specifically to highlight those differences and show why word for word translations do not work.

[squishibananas]

The children will eat the fish.
아이들은 물고기를 먹을 것입니다.
(children fish eat will)

Send the professor a letter from your new school.
교사님께 새로운 학교로부터의 편지를 보내세요.
(professor to new school from letter send)

The fish will be eaten by the children.
물고기가 아이들에게 먹힐 것입니다.
(fish children by be eaten will)

The last one sounds like a proverb so I don’t know if you want the Korean equivalent of the proverb or a direct translation. I don’t know the proverb so all I can give you is the latter.

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
마음이 강하지만 몸이 약하다.
(spirit strong but body weak :/)

Thank you very much!
땡큐 베리 감사!
ㄴㅇㄴ okay, I kid…

I’ve once done this sort of thing with a Spanish-learning friend of mine. When I looked at the Korean word order written in English, I didn’t know how I could ever know to phrase a sentence like that.

[ginger_kitty]

Thank you!

( For the last-- it is a bible quote, but the professor is looking for a direct translation. So this is perfect. :) )

I've done similar things before with other languages, though I usually have a good grasp of the language before I intentionally mangle it (so I am then able to provide the correct translations on my own). An extension of this assignment is that I get to play games with trying to confuse online translators.

[squishibananas]

Ohoho~ You don’t have to do anything to play games with online translators. They already provide enough lulz on their own without you putting in any effort. Both Korean-English and English-Korean seem to have gotten the short end of the translation stick. When talking with friends over msn or when writing emails, I regularly put what I say through the Google translator just to see what shathouse it spits back at me. Have fun!