Does magnetic poetry work in Korean?
February 8, 2011 10:44 AM Subscribe
KoreanLanguageFilter: Would magnetic poetry work in Korean? I want to make a set as a Valentine's Day gift with Korean and English words.
I want to make tiles that have English and Hangul versions of the same word (plus little pictures - hopefully I can make it as cute as I'm envisioning it in my head). But my Korean is barely existent, so I don't know if the sentences would make sense in both English and Korean. Subject, verb, object, etc... can they be rearranged with Korean like in English without it being ridiculous Korengrish?
Help me make a cute thing for my cute girlfriend! She is Korean, in case that's not obvious, and she speaks English just fine. If I have to just do English that would be okay, but not as cute. It's also possible that ridiculous Korengrish would be cute. Please advise, mefi.
I want to make tiles that have English and Hangul versions of the same word (plus little pictures - hopefully I can make it as cute as I'm envisioning it in my head). But my Korean is barely existent, so I don't know if the sentences would make sense in both English and Korean. Subject, verb, object, etc... can they be rearranged with Korean like in English without it being ridiculous Korengrish?
Help me make a cute thing for my cute girlfriend! She is Korean, in case that's not obvious, and she speaks English just fine. If I have to just do English that would be okay, but not as cute. It's also possible that ridiculous Korengrish would be cute. Please advise, mefi.
Aww goddamn, that looked good in preview. Here we go:
posted by suedehead at 11:02 AM on February 8, 2011
Here's an example:
the dog will jump over the orange fence.
는/은/를/을 강아지 을 것 입니다 뛰었 넘어 는/은/를/을 주황색 울타리
reshuffled in korean:
dog the orange fence the jumped over (will do)
강아지 는/은/를/을 주황색 울타리 는/은/를/을 뛰었 넘어 을 것 입니다
posted by suedehead at 11:02 AM on February 8, 2011
Awww, that is one of the cutest ideas I've heard in a long time. I took Korean for three years in college so here's my opinion. This is a great idea and definitely possible even if you don't speak Korean, just go through a list of nouns verbs and adverbs, I'm sure you can find verb lists online. Things become difficult when you are trying to make the sentences grammatically correct but anyone who has used the English version of magnetic poetry knows this isn't possible or the point. Unfortunately that means you will probably have to leave out other than present tenses. Give it a shot though. I agree with the above that sentences in english won't make sense in Korean and visa versa, maybe this part should be left out. Perhaps you could just do it in Korean and have fun translating her poems yourself. Very cute!
posted by boobjob at 11:41 AM on February 8, 2011
posted by boobjob at 11:41 AM on February 8, 2011
It's not totally impossible. As stated above, it's possible if you realize you'll be sacrificing clarity on one language to make the other language make sense.
It also depends on how well you want this to work out with limited understanding of the language. Your girlfriend will probably think this is a cute effort either way, but taking suedehead's example (which is a good starting point as to how you should probably be making these tiles), suedehead is using very polite formal form of Korean. Besides the subject-verb order Korean also has levels of politeness/formal speech. Like the difference between saying "Annyunghasaeyo" to an elder or boss, and just saying a quick "Annyung!" to your friend.
I'm not at a Korean typing keyboard at the moment so I'm going to do my best here to explain:
You want a word tile for eat. Well, eat how? "mukda" is the plain/dictionary form of the verb eat, but it's...a little tough to work into just a normal sentence. "Mukseubnidah" is a polite way of saying "is eating," but do you want it to be a polite form? Or what if it's another tense? "Mukuh" would be a VERY informal/less polite way to say "to eat", but also can be interpreted as a command/order to eat. And so on and so forth.
The closest comparison would be trying to make a Spanish-language tile poetry thing for your Spanish speaking girlfriend with a very limited grasp of the language and not realize there are different verb forms. You could use a dictionary and come up with simple tiles for verbs and such like "hablar" for talk or to speak, but you probably would have a tough time trying to figure out if you also needed "hablo," "hables" and "hablamos" as well if you wanted to make a tile set that to function pretty well.
My advice, without having actually done this, would be first narrow down the field by focusing on just a few true things you know about her that you can distill into several types of simple phrases and translate those. Like does she like reading books? Does she like animals? What kind of books/music/movie? How about a specific movie or tv show or artist. Just come up with a simple list like:
- I like animals (level up: make sentences stating specific animals or breeds like "I like cats" or "I like Labrador Retrievers")
- I like to eat [food item] (either name specific food items or you can also come up with sentences like "I like to eat spicy foods")
- I like to watch movies [level up: several sentences of movies or other things she likes to watch like "I like to watch scary movies" or I like to watch [insert name of drama/movie]"
And so on and so forth. Then translate those sentences. Then you can create some tiles with other nouns and some more adjectives kind of augment them with adjectives like colors or flavors, or types of movies or other proper nouns (Example: Do you have any real pets? her friends have pets? Throw those pets' names in!). So she'll be able to make a sentence for "I like to eat chocolate ice cream" or "I like brown dogs" or "I like Ppoppi" (Ppoppi's just a generic dog's name I pulled out of a hat, like Fido) or "I like scary movies" but then she has room to make silly sentences from the existing pool like "I like to eat scary ice cream" or something.
This accomplishes two goals:
1. It gives you a basic set to work from and makes the task less daunting
2. It also is a cute way to show you care and notice things about her beyond "Hey, you speak Korean." When she works out a phrase like "I like [some movie she likes]," she can think "Awww...I do. It's so sweet you know that."
If you have time and want to make it more fun, translate some you/I descriptive sentences. this is easy because in Korean it's usually "Noun+ eun/neun + descriptor" Again start simple like:
- I am [insert descriptor]
- You are [insert descriptor]
- Make a tile with your name and one for her name
Make a list of things describing her or you. Kind of a minefield, but do your best by sticking with innocuous stuff like:
- nice (chakhada)
- funny (ootkidah or jaemi itdah: the former is more "funny" in a "you're silly/a joker" kind of way, the later is more like "you are fun/amusing to be around")
- a sleepyhead (jamkkeurugi)
- hungry (baegopeudah)
- if you guys are cool like that, maybe even is a dummy (babo: In Korean, in a familiar relationship, calling someone a babo, isn't as harsh as in english saying "idiot" or "stupid." Dummy is probably the best english equivalent in this sense, since it sounds more playful)
And last but not least, translate tiles to make the sentences "[Your name/Her name] loves [Your name/her name]" for extra "awwww" factor.
So if you were to make tiles, it'd say [your name] + [eun/neun] + [her name] + [eul/reul] + [saranghabnidah].
Then she can make silly sentences like "I love Ppoppi" (going back to inserting a pet's name example).
posted by kkokkodalk at 12:29 PM on February 8, 2011
It also depends on how well you want this to work out with limited understanding of the language. Your girlfriend will probably think this is a cute effort either way, but taking suedehead's example (which is a good starting point as to how you should probably be making these tiles), suedehead is using very polite formal form of Korean. Besides the subject-verb order Korean also has levels of politeness/formal speech. Like the difference between saying "Annyunghasaeyo" to an elder or boss, and just saying a quick "Annyung!" to your friend.
I'm not at a Korean typing keyboard at the moment so I'm going to do my best here to explain:
You want a word tile for eat. Well, eat how? "mukda" is the plain/dictionary form of the verb eat, but it's...a little tough to work into just a normal sentence. "Mukseubnidah" is a polite way of saying "is eating," but do you want it to be a polite form? Or what if it's another tense? "Mukuh" would be a VERY informal/less polite way to say "to eat", but also can be interpreted as a command/order to eat. And so on and so forth.
The closest comparison would be trying to make a Spanish-language tile poetry thing for your Spanish speaking girlfriend with a very limited grasp of the language and not realize there are different verb forms. You could use a dictionary and come up with simple tiles for verbs and such like "hablar" for talk or to speak, but you probably would have a tough time trying to figure out if you also needed "hablo," "hables" and "hablamos" as well if you wanted to make a tile set that to function pretty well.
My advice, without having actually done this, would be first narrow down the field by focusing on just a few true things you know about her that you can distill into several types of simple phrases and translate those. Like does she like reading books? Does she like animals? What kind of books/music/movie? How about a specific movie or tv show or artist. Just come up with a simple list like:
- I like animals (level up: make sentences stating specific animals or breeds like "I like cats" or "I like Labrador Retrievers")
- I like to eat [food item] (either name specific food items or you can also come up with sentences like "I like to eat spicy foods")
- I like to watch movies [level up: several sentences of movies or other things she likes to watch like "I like to watch scary movies" or I like to watch [insert name of drama/movie]"
And so on and so forth. Then translate those sentences. Then you can create some tiles with other nouns and some more adjectives kind of augment them with adjectives like colors or flavors, or types of movies or other proper nouns (Example: Do you have any real pets? her friends have pets? Throw those pets' names in!). So she'll be able to make a sentence for "I like to eat chocolate ice cream" or "I like brown dogs" or "I like Ppoppi" (Ppoppi's just a generic dog's name I pulled out of a hat, like Fido) or "I like scary movies" but then she has room to make silly sentences from the existing pool like "I like to eat scary ice cream" or something.
This accomplishes two goals:
1. It gives you a basic set to work from and makes the task less daunting
2. It also is a cute way to show you care and notice things about her beyond "Hey, you speak Korean." When she works out a phrase like "I like [some movie she likes]," she can think "Awww...I do. It's so sweet you know that."
If you have time and want to make it more fun, translate some you/I descriptive sentences. this is easy because in Korean it's usually "Noun+ eun/neun + descriptor" Again start simple like:
- I am [insert descriptor]
- You are [insert descriptor]
- Make a tile with your name and one for her name
Make a list of things describing her or you. Kind of a minefield, but do your best by sticking with innocuous stuff like:
- nice (chakhada)
- funny (ootkidah or jaemi itdah: the former is more "funny" in a "you're silly/a joker" kind of way, the later is more like "you are fun/amusing to be around")
- a sleepyhead (jamkkeurugi)
- hungry (baegopeudah)
- if you guys are cool like that, maybe even is a dummy (babo: In Korean, in a familiar relationship, calling someone a babo, isn't as harsh as in english saying "idiot" or "stupid." Dummy is probably the best english equivalent in this sense, since it sounds more playful)
And last but not least, translate tiles to make the sentences "[Your name/Her name] loves [Your name/her name]" for extra "awwww" factor.
So if you were to make tiles, it'd say [your name] + [eun/neun] + [her name] + [eul/reul] + [saranghabnidah].
Then she can make silly sentences like "I love Ppoppi" (going back to inserting a pet's name example).
posted by kkokkodalk at 12:29 PM on February 8, 2011
If it were just Korean magnetic poetry you were interested in, there'd be no problem, but since you want the bilingual version, I'd say stick to nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and conjunctions. Those seem pretty safe.
Probably leave out prepositions. I'm thinking of prepositions and they go after the noun ("under the bridge" becomes "bridge beneath"). But a "very fast dog" comes out the same. The challenge, as I said, is the bilingual aspect, and if you tried to do this with German, you'd run into these problems too. (Or, if you in German to do this tried, then into these problems would you run. Or therewith. Or something.) Maybe just a few present tense verbs, since Korean goes subject-verb. So "The very fast dog runs." But if you were trying to do "The dog runs very fast," it would become "The dog very fast runs." Of course, it's abstract poetry, not a business memo, so it's definitely doable. It wouldn't be totally ridiculous.
I think I'd leave out connecting words like "는/은/를/을" which don't really have equivalents in Korean, they just signal whether something's a subject or a direct object or whatever. So, as I said, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and conjunctions ("however," "and so," etc.), as well as maybe a few short phrases ("It was frightening," "I don't know,")
Kind of rambling, so I'll stop, it's just hard to describe a language in this way. If you want more help, memail me, although I can't guarantee I'll be able to respond. I could probably give you a few suggestions if you need them.
posted by Busoni at 1:45 PM on February 8, 2011
Probably leave out prepositions. I'm thinking of prepositions and they go after the noun ("under the bridge" becomes "bridge beneath"). But a "very fast dog" comes out the same. The challenge, as I said, is the bilingual aspect, and if you tried to do this with German, you'd run into these problems too. (Or, if you in German to do this tried, then into these problems would you run. Or therewith. Or something.) Maybe just a few present tense verbs, since Korean goes subject-verb. So "The very fast dog runs." But if you were trying to do "The dog runs very fast," it would become "The dog very fast runs." Of course, it's abstract poetry, not a business memo, so it's definitely doable. It wouldn't be totally ridiculous.
I think I'd leave out connecting words like "는/은/를/을" which don't really have equivalents in Korean, they just signal whether something's a subject or a direct object or whatever. So, as I said, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and conjunctions ("however," "and so," etc.), as well as maybe a few short phrases ("It was frightening," "I don't know,")
Kind of rambling, so I'll stop, it's just hard to describe a language in this way. If you want more help, memail me, although I can't guarantee I'll be able to respond. I could probably give you a few suggestions if you need them.
posted by Busoni at 1:45 PM on February 8, 2011
Or look over you list and your translations, that I could probably do without too much trouble.
posted by Busoni at 1:47 PM on February 8, 2011
posted by Busoni at 1:47 PM on February 8, 2011
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Here's an example:
the dog will jump over the orange fence.
는/은/를/을 강아지 을 것 입니다 뛰었 넘어 는/은/를/을 주황색 울타리
reshuffled in korean:
dog the orange fence the jumped over (will do)
강아지 는/은/를/을 주황색 울타리 는/은/를/을 뛰었 넘어 을 것 입니다
While the English makes a little sense, the Korean looks more fragmented.
THAT SAID, I think you should do it. I think it'd be fun, and cute. You should definitely consult someone who has an good knowledge of both languages, however, as 'the' in Korean changes form depending on what phonetic syllable it's next to, and technically the bottom sentence has a misspelling in it because the future tense of the phrase ends up changing some of the characters.. but it will be cute.
posted by suedehead at 11:00 AM on February 8, 2011