한글 filter - help me stress "NO MEAT" in Korean.

April 23, 2013 3:06 PM

I speak a very small level of Korean - enough to engage in commercial transactions (especially in restaurants) but not political theorizing. When we go to Korean restaurants, I try to use my 한글 so that I'm as clear as possible. My husband and I don't eat meat. We do eat fish, but not shellfish - but no chicken, pork, beef or otherwise. (Insert quote from My Big Fat Greek Wedding here.) Husband likes to order 돌솥 비빔밥 in Korean restaurants (as do I!) but the past few times we've done so, we end up with a dish containing ground beef, despite my protestations. Here is what I say: 그는 고기를 먹지 않는다. I thought that would do it - AFAIK, it means, "he don't eat no meat." Tell me what I'm saying wrong and what I should say to avoid this issue!
posted by mccn to Society & Culture (5 answers total)

(Typing on my phone so apologies ahead if time for any weird formatting)

The sentence you have above is kind if stilted because the tone and phrasing is more for something you would say about someone who is not in the room as a declaration. In english the effect would be like if you were alone at a restaurant and suddenly stood up to resolutely state, 'he does not eat meat'. Do you at least gesture to your husband when you say this? That could be causing some confusion causing the servers to go into "Oooh...ok nice to hear you try korean" polite mode rather than actually listen to what you're trying to convey.

To double check before i go on, are you both vegetarian or just your husband? The examples below assume the former.

The sentence you have only indicates that your husband does not eat meat not the both of you. Also it does not convey diet/lifestyle eating and can be taken as sounding like you are making a comment on your husband's preferences or dining pecadilloes. The word you want is "채식주의자" (chaeshik juwijah). That is vegetarian in Korean. if you both don't eat meat the sentence would be 우리는 고기룰 먹지 않습니다 (oori neun gogi reuk mukji anseubnida) and for extra measure start off with or follow up with 우리는 채식주위자입니다. (oori neun chaeshik juwijah ibnida)

However, the problem in Korea, as you've mentioned. Is that at restaurants it might not be foolproof since menu items can contain broth or dried shrimp or what have you. Unless you are Buddhist monk who eats 사찰 음식 (by the way check out a Buddhist monk cuisine restaurant for guaranteed vegetarian Korean dining. There used to be one in Insadong back in the day, but don't know if it's still there). Unfortunately sometimes the best way to get what you want is going to be being clearer and more specific.

It's tough to advise without knowing exactly your level of fluency but can you start off by learning the korean words for meat you don't eat?

Examples: shrimp=sae woo and pork=dwaeji gogi and beef=sogogi

Do you know how to say "don't put in..."? If you can say neuchimasaeyo, you can construct basic sentences with [meat type]+neuchimasaeyo. That is if you know what meat goes in it. Or after you say "we are vegetarians. We don't eat meat." add for good measure "gogi neuchimasaeyo" to say "don't put in meat."

Otherwise a smile, enthusiastic body language and a little konglish can work be more effective if your pronunciation isn't so great. Because to be honest, Korean sometimes is not clearer if your pronunciation isn't great and/or your grammar is really weak. So when you place your order tell your server you are vegetarians and don't eat meat and say "Gogi...no!" (or if you're ordering bibimbap from the same place, say "sogogi...no!") if you want to get silly cross your forearms in front of you to make an X and shake your head and say no. All in good nature with a smile of course.

If you go to the bibimbap place often enough and become regulars, it's even better to do this a couple of times so they remember you as the "gogi no!" couple.
posted by kkokkodalk at 4:33 PM on April 23, 2013 [6 favorites]

Would carrying one of the vegetarian cards from Select Wisely help? A co-worker who's celiac finds their gluten-free cards very useful when ordering from restaurants where there's a possible language barrier.
posted by Lexica at 7:05 PM on April 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

A phrase that used to work when my nephews were not eating something or other was ___ 못 먹어요, which in your case would be 고기 못 먹어요 ("I/we can't eat meat / are unable to eat meat.") The connotation of this phrase is a bit different from declaring "We don't eat meat". 못 먹어요 implies that you are unable to eat something, perhaps due to reasons out of your control, such as your health. This makes it easier for the other party to accede to your request to leave out some ingredient. So you'd say something like 고기 넣지 마세요, 고기 못 먹어요. I think the typical restaurant order taker would find this easier to process than your declaring you're vegetarian. Koreans are actually pretty used to people who can't eat something or other because they don't like the smell, or their traditional Korean medicine doctor told them to avoid the stuff, or it gives them hives, or whatever.

I agree with kkokkodaik that 그는 고기를 먹지 않는다 is a decidedly odd thing to say - it's something you'd write. Also, in spoken Korean, you'll come across as being more polite in a friendly way if you use the "yo" suffix instead of the "da" suffix, especially for requests. The example phrases that kkokkodaik and I suggested which have requests all end in "yo."
posted by needled at 7:49 PM on April 23, 2013

When I went to China, I got three pictures of the internationally understood "NO!" symbol (ie a red circle with a line through it) containing outlines of pig, fish and chicken, and put them on my phone. I was able to make myself pretty well understood.
posted by salmacis at 7:59 AM on April 24, 2013

Response by poster: kkokkodaik - thanks very much! (I do use the -yo ending, of course, when speaking - it's just that I didn't have good access to a Korean keyboard at my computer, so I was copy/pasting from Google Translate to get the hangul.) That's super thorough, and makes a lot of sense!

ETA: I appear to have a great accent, and have never had a problem with being understood. Copypasta notwithstanding, I think my grammar is just fine - I took a year of Korean in college, and lived in Seoul for a year and a half, and conducted my business without giant issues. I think it was really more of a vocab issue.
posted by mccn at 9:06 AM on April 24, 2013