As someone who's Korean is basically whatever I have learned from watching too much Korean drama (i.e. practically nothing), I didn't really think that the subtitled translation was that bad. I...
As someone who's Korean is basically whatever I have learned from watching too much Korean drama (i.e. practically nothing), I didn't really think that the subtitled translation was that bad. I knew about the descripency between the honorifics, but I thought the translation did a fairly good job of transmitting the meanings of what was being said. The only thing that bothered me was that I felt that they were inconsistent with their usage of the Korean terms, specifically why they didn't turn "gganbu" into "best buds" but used "Red Light Green Light" when there's differences in how it's played or "Honeycomb" when it's basically a complete foreign activity to most English speakers (at least in the US).
Form that article it doesn't seem I've missed much (I mostly understood the "Sir" thing), although the "babe" was a bit strange. That said in Japanese animation (mostly the fan-made ones I think)...
Form that article it doesn't seem I've missed much (I mostly understood the "Sir" thing), although the "babe" was a bit strange. That said in Japanese animation (mostly the fan-made ones I think) they sometimes have notes in the subtitles when the cultural context is important, I think it's the right way to do it.
Is there any mention of how dubs handle these untranslatable words? I didn't catch it in my quick read through and would like to share with my friends that argue over subs vs dubs.
Is there any mention of how dubs handle these untranslatable words? I didn't catch it in my quick read through and would like to share with my friends that argue over subs vs dubs.
The big example cited is that in the English dub, Ali insisted on calling Sang Woo "Sir", to which Sang Woo replied that he was nobody's Sir and that he should just call him Sang Woo. But in the...
The big example cited is that in the English dub, Ali insisted on calling Sang Woo "Sir", to which Sang Woo replied that he was nobody's Sir and that he should just call him Sang Woo.
But in the original Korean, Ali was calling him "sajang-nim", which as far as I can tell goes beyond the basic respect implied with "Sir". Seems like it implies a degree of subservience? The article says the literal translation is "Mr Company President". And because Ali is an immigrant with a limited grasp of Korean, he's probably really familiar with being super respectful to and treated poorly by those "above" him. Sang Woo tells him to call him "hyung" instead, which means "big brother".
So long story short, my understanding is that basically Sang Woo is saying "Ali, you don't have to kiss my ass, I won't screw you over, we're in this together and I'll be your big brother and take care of you". And then of course he ends up screwing him over and not at all taking care of him. So the impact of that is even bigger than what we got in the English dub. In the english dub what we got was basically "Ali, I'm not comfortable being called 'Sir', just call me by my name", which doesn't really imply any sort of stronger relationship than a casual one.
As someone who's Korean is basically whatever I have learned from watching too much Korean drama (i.e. practically nothing), I didn't really think that the subtitled translation was that bad. I knew about the descripency between the honorifics, but I thought the translation did a fairly good job of transmitting the meanings of what was being said. The only thing that bothered me was that I felt that they were inconsistent with their usage of the Korean terms, specifically why they didn't turn "gganbu" into "best buds" but used "Red Light Green Light" when there's differences in how it's played or "Honeycomb" when it's basically a complete foreign activity to most English speakers (at least in the US).
Form that article it doesn't seem I've missed much (I mostly understood the "Sir" thing), although the "babe" was a bit strange. That said in Japanese animation (mostly the fan-made ones I think) they sometimes have notes in the subtitles when the cultural context is important, I think it's the right way to do it.
Is there any mention of how dubs handle these untranslatable words? I didn't catch it in my quick read through and would like to share with my friends that argue over subs vs dubs.
The big example cited is that in the English dub, Ali insisted on calling Sang Woo "Sir", to which Sang Woo replied that he was nobody's Sir and that he should just call him Sang Woo.
But in the original Korean, Ali was calling him "sajang-nim", which as far as I can tell goes beyond the basic respect implied with "Sir". Seems like it implies a degree of subservience? The article says the literal translation is "Mr Company President". And because Ali is an immigrant with a limited grasp of Korean, he's probably really familiar with being super respectful to and treated poorly by those "above" him. Sang Woo tells him to call him "hyung" instead, which means "big brother".
So long story short, my understanding is that basically Sang Woo is saying "Ali, you don't have to kiss my ass, I won't screw you over, we're in this together and I'll be your big brother and take care of you". And then of course he ends up screwing him over and not at all taking care of him. So the impact of that is even bigger than what we got in the English dub. In the english dub what we got was basically "Ali, I'm not comfortable being called 'Sir', just call me by my name", which doesn't really imply any sort of stronger relationship than a casual one.