Korean Language Professor Breaks Down Squid Game’s Subtitles | WIRED

korean speakers watching the netflix series squid game we're quick to point out that the english translations didn't always match up to the dialogue wired reached out to korean language professor chuwan sun to see what english speakers might be missing out on this part the translation is definitely sanitized two main differences i noticed in the translations are addressed terms comes out and the swearing expressions today we're going to be talking about english subtitles not the dub version you know where your son happens to be now on business in the united states that's a whole other video so let's start with the address terms pay attention to the translated word sir in this scene in episode 2 between ali the pakistani immigrant and sangu the stockbroker is the president of company or ceo of the company the meaning itself is extended to many different situations so anybody who looks like in a suit and then a little bit older and then everybody starts calling that person uh so ali is using that name and calling um a lot of male characters in that in the show korean speakers use honorifics constantly when speaking to each other you can hear it here here and here it would be impossible to translate all of these in squid game because they're so ubiquitous but the way the characters address each other shows the evolution of the relationship listen carefully when zangu asks ali to call him by his first name he's actually using this term asks ali to call him hyung then he's using intimate ending in the korean language we don't call each other by our first names we are not really first name-based society hyung is refers to older brother or elder brother of a man that hung word is a big brother is extended to other social relationships so that means that we are close before we didn't know each other well but now we know each other and we are getting closer that's why uh that marvel scene it was really heartbreaking when ali keep calling keeps calling uh hong hong hong kong so basically he thinks that zhang is almost like a brother to him that he was betrayed [Music] in that sense it's more heartbreaking if you know what hong and mean in the korean language another example of an honorific showing relationship is han meow's use of oppa i don't think babe is a accurate translation for oppa upa means older brother to a woman oppa is oh definitely a family term a family relationship term but at the same time it's extended to a romantic relationship between a man and a woman so when you start like between men and women a woman starts calling the other man that means that it's kind of like okay we are getting closer as a woman and a man how menial character was trying to do that with the chang doksu character oppa because oppa implies the woman is younger than the man when dexu says is that right he's actually saying he's not older than her that oh it's not like i'm not i'm not a man or you are you're not a woman it's more like you look older than i am there's a switch to age difference and she she asked him say how old do you think i am and then he's like saying 49 and 39 29 and he was playing with that age thing address terms are extremely difficult uh when you have to translate the korean into english next up let's talk about swearing in some translations korean cursing words are translated into like scumbag jerk and idiot they don't really convey that the harshness of the korean cursing words cursing expressions the word seki is translating jerk most of the time but i don't think it's the right translation seki literally means a baby animal like a baby of any animals if you do that you are basically cursing at your mother yeah so that's the whole idea but i think it's a little bit more serious than jerk one of the difficulties of translation is conveying meaning quickly because subtitles are rarely over two lines but what's lost in translation when a swear word is translated to a pg term it's not just about swearing words and some expressions are very vulgar and that's also kind of stands out to me let's take a look at the character han menya this part the translation is definitely sanitized that's definitely not a scumbag sibaluma is like um okay i just said it oh my gosh on camera okay it's like a f-word it's a i would say bastard that kind of thing no one even says come back anymore an interesting thing is her background was really not explained in the show i think the cursing and using all these low class expressions the way she's expressing that i got to go to the bathroom in a kind of very vulnerable way it's a it's not cursing word but the way she describes her state was just really very bad linguistically it's kind of interesting to see her background uh through her use of language translation is an incredibly difficult job and the success of squid game shows how well the show did overall overall it's pretty accurate in terms of um conveying the storyline i could ask a little bit more in subtly and a little bit like a nuance if you don't know the language and you are have to depend on the subtitles of course you miss a lot of things it's not because it's the korean language and english translation it's any kind of language and translation netflix international language series continued to gain in popularity squid games success likely means we're going to see more and more translations so what can audiences take away from discussing the nuances of the original korean english is the lingua franca so the everybody speaks english even if you go to france then you can you can you know travel speaking english sometimes the english-speaking people think that the other languages um are not as sophisticated because you don't know and they you don't speak that language through subtitle shows you can say okay the other language i don't know but it has a lot of cultural you know nuances and uh a richer in its own way

Channel: WIRED

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Keywords: currents, currents wired, explain squid game, joowon suh, korean phrases, korean phrases squid game, netflix squid game, squid game, squid game 2021, squid game captions, squid game explained, squid game explainer, squid game korean, squid game korean explained, squid game korean phrases, squid game netflix, squid game phrases, squid game show, squid game translation, squid game wired, squid games, wired, wired currents, wired squid game

Id: 5jy3Hz39CnU

Length: 7min 30sec (450 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 29 2021