Has anyone else out there had a great vision while on the toilet??

Also, does anyone have any North Korean words to share with the rest of the community?

There are quite a few interesting North Korean words that Korean learners might find very very amusing.

Women’s bras are called 브레지어 here, but in North Korea they call them 가슴띠(and 띠 menas a belt or a strip)

some more examples of the Korean words YOU know translated into the North Korean version :

녹차(green tea) —> 푸른차(blue+tea)
골키퍼(goalkeeper) —> 문지기(door + guard)
샴푸(shampoo) –> 머리비누(hair+soap)
헤딩(heading) –> 머리받기(head+hit)

As Koreans, we have classes in middle school and high school on how to read the classic 한글 and traslate it into the modern-day 한글. It’s quite interesting!! except when you have to take tests on it.

I really loved this culture class.

Thank you very much. I learned a lot about Korea. I unfortunately haven’t been able to be studying Korean right now, but at least I can follow those culture classes.

About the toilet… that was a really weird question in the first post, I was a little “shocked” when I read that, but I believe good ideas can happen anywhere. If I were the King, I’d probably never tell I created an alphabet while staying there, though. I don’t even want to try to imagine what kind of associations he made to create it!!!

About mongolian birthmark, that wasn’t that much surprising. My mother worked with kids in the past and one of the girls there had a Mongolian father, so she talked to the mother to see if the girl was getting spanked or something. That’s when she discovered about this and told us.

I believe my comment is getting long, but I just wanted to say how I liked this lesson, specially when you talked about the differences between North and South Korean.

Bye

Wow, Max, to be honest, I’m SHOCKED that your friends didn’t know that today was 한글날. Maybe there were in China for a very long time, or maybe they didn’t know that yesterday was October 9th?

And as for the Mongolian birthmarks, try asking your friends again using the words “엉덩이(butt)의 몽고반점(Mongolian birthmark)”. I’m sure they’ll know.

I always know about 한흘 day as I have a starbucks mug celebrating the creation of 한글. You can see one at this flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/airground/229656334/) not my mug, but the same.

It’s my blogging psuedonym as I prefer to remain anonymous on the internet. Yes I gave it to myself and it’s very very very true.

Yeah I am the administrator/owner and recently not very active participant. It is a group blog and any one is welcome to join and blog or use the message boards.

Thanks for the culture class! It was really interesting. I think hangeul is a very interesting writing system, and it has a fascianting history.

I especially liked the section on North Korean language, and how they don’t use “Konglish” words. That makes sense, considering how isolated the people are– and I don’t just mean from Western influence. What interested me more, though, is how the government abolished Chinese characters, because they wanted “traditional, pure Korean.” But if they really want to go back to their people’s tradition, Chinese characters were the only thing used before Sejong’s reign…

Also, do North Koreans count using Sino-Korean numbers at all, or are they not “pure Korean” enough? Would they say their phone numbers using “둘 다섯 넷 - 여덟 다섯 아홉 둘”?

Keith…

You’re right about the world-renown fame of King Se-Jeong!

A homeless man I met in Portland, Oregon who asked me for money knew. When I told him I could speak a little Korean, he got all impressed and then told me how he heard the Korean was a unique language because “some king had invented it a few hundred years ago”

Needless to say, I was pretty surprised he knew that…

It used to be taught in school that he invened 한글 along with a team of scholars, but now they are finding more and more evidence that the King Sejong himself invented the whole system by himself.

I also find the North Korean position interesting. Like Daniel said, if they want to get back to the origin then Chinese characters are the way to go. I also find it interesting that while China is a big (only?) ally of North Korea, there is clearly a big attempt to make a distiction with the language to separate themselves from China. So to me, it looks as though North Korea’s embrace of 한글 is more a way to be distinct from china rather than get back to their cultural roots.

That’s definitely an interesting point, Steved. Could it also be part of their official position to want to unite the two Koreas (under the communist banner, of course)? The united Korea will need one, united language, and it won’t be Chinese!

The difference between a 노숙자 and a 거지 is,

노숙자 is a homeless person who sleeps in the street, and 거지 is also someone who might sleep in the street but they are more like .. beggers,

노숙 means 노(street) 숙(sleep)
:D