Dave Gilbert | 
10 31st, 2005| 
I have steadily gained a huge appreciation for the film “Lost in Translation,” which (for the uninitiated) stars Bill Murray as a man spending a few days in Japan and is overwhelmed by the different culture. One of my favorite scenes is when a japanese woman tells him to “lip” something. Bill Murray is understandably confused, and replies “Lip? What do you mean? Lip?” It is revealed soon that the woman was trying to say “rip.”
I suppose it is easy to poke fun at this, but apparently I am doing the same thing. The Korean locals often laugh when I mispronounce certain words.
About one month ago, I was telling my students the story of Korean foundation day, and one of the principal characters is named “Tangun.” Everytime I said this name, the kids would laugh hysterically and shout “It’s pronounced Tangun! Tangun!” I would reply with “Okay. Tangun.” and the kids would laugh again. I naturally assumed that the kids were messing with me, but I later asked a korean (adult) friend how to pronounce “Tangun,” and the result was the same. I swear by everything I hold dear that I pronounced it exactly the same as the koreans did, but apparently I got some subtle enunciation wrong or stressed the wrong part of a certain syllable, because I was uttering the Korean word for “horror” as opposed to the name of a Korean mythological hero. I will just have to accept that “Tangun” is a word I will never say correctly.
By the same token, I love it when the kids do the same thing. The “Z” sound, for example, is not a something Korean vocal chords are used to. Instead, they opt for a softer “J” sound, which sometimes leads to hysterical results. Like this one:
Praise the King of Olympus! The ruler of all the gods!
ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY JUICE!
Also, if you want to look at monkeys, you go to a Jew. What a concept!
I love this country.
