One of the strangest things I find about Korea is the infiltration of English into their language. For example, stores always have the Korean and English spelling of the store names on them. So the tire shop down the road says "Hankook Tire" right under the Hangul that says the same thing. But here's the weird part: it's not a translation of the Korean, it's actually what it says. So the tire shop, in Korean and to Koreans is "Hankook Tire" (which means Korea Tire). But surely there's a word for "tire" in Korean. Or the bike shop where I bought my bike being called what sounds like "eengee moters" although there's got to be a Korean word for "motor". Every day my google homepage displays a new Korean word and so often the word sounds exactly like the English equivalent -- "cancel" is the only one I can think of right now. And "ice cream". Anyway, it just doesn't make sense to me.
2 comments:
Lots of examples of that around the world: the French when referring to Saturday and Sunday use the word "weekend". They don't have their own word for it. Bon jour.
Same in Spain and Latin America. In Central America to ask for a lift as in hitchhiking, they say "pedir un ray" Ray as in "ride." In other words, "to ask for a ride." For bike breaks they say brekes (although there is a spanish word for breaks--frenas. I don't know why they say brekes.) But, Lizzy, think about all the "english" words that we have that are not really english at all. Bouquet, ballet, valet, tortilla, burrito (which is actually very English, since burritos don't really exist for reals in Mexico).
Viva Nacho Libre!! Ay! Ay! Ay!
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