korean speakers watching the netflix
series squid game we're quick to point
out that the english translations didn't
always match up to the dialogue wired
reached out to korean language professor
chuwan sun to see what english speakers
might be missing out on this part the
translation is definitely sanitized
two main differences i noticed in the
translations are addressed terms come on
and the swearing expressions
today we're going to be talking about
english subtitles not the dub version
you know where your son happens to be
now on business in the united states
that's a whole other video so let's
start with the address terms
pay attention to the translated word sir
in this scene in episode 2 between ali
the pakistani immigrant and sango the
stockbroker
is the president of company or ceo of
the company the meaning itself is
extended to many different situations so
anybody who looks like in a suit and
then a little bit older and then
everybody starts calling that person
uh ali is using that
name and calling um a lot of male
characters in that in the show korean
speakers use honorifics constantly when
speaking to each other you can hear it
here
and here
it would be impossible to translate all
of these in squid game because they're
so ubiquitous but the way the characters
address each other shows the evolution
of the relationship listen carefully
when sengu asks ali to call him by his
first name
he's actually using this term
asks ali to call him hyung then he's
using intimate ending in the korean
language we don't call each other by
our first names we are not really first
name-based society hyung is refers to
older brother or elder brother of a man
that hyung word is a big brother is
extended to other social relationships
so that means that
we are close before we didn't know each
other well
but now we know each other and we are
getting closer that's why
that marvel scene it was really
heartbreaking when ali keep calling
keeps calling uh hong hong hong kong
so basically he thinks that zhang is
almost like a brother to him that he was
betrayed
[Music]
in that sense it's more heartbreaking
if you know what hong and
mean in the korean language another
example of an honorific showing
relationship is han meow's use of oppa
i don't think babe is a accurate
translation for oppa oppa means older
brother to a woman oppa
is
oh definitely a family term a family
relationship term but at the same time
it's extended to a romantic relationship
between a man and a woman so when you
start like between men and women a woman
starts calling the other man
that means that it's kind of like okay
we're getting closer as a woman and a
man how menial character was trying to
do that with the chang doksu character
hope
because oppa implies the woman is
younger than the man when dexu says is
that right
he's actually saying he's not older than
her that oh it's not like i'm not i'm
not a man or you are you're not a woman
it's more like you look older than i am
there's a switch to age difference and
she she asked him like how old do you
think i am and then he's like saying 49
and 39 29 and he was playing with that
age thing address terms are extremely
difficult uh when you have to translate
the korean into english next up let's
talk about swearing in some translations
korean cursing words are translated into
like scumbag jerk and idiot they don't
really convey that the harshness of the
korean cursing words cursing expressions
the word seki is translating jerk most
of the time but i don't think it's the
right
translation seki literally means a baby
animal like a baby of any animals if you
do that you are basically cursing at
your mother yeah
so that's the whole idea but i think
it's a little bit more serious than jerk
one of the difficulties of translation
is conveying meaning quickly because
subtitles are rarely over two lines but
what's lost in translation when a swear
word is translated to a pg term it's not
just about swearing words and some
expressions are very vulgar and that's
also kind of stands out to me let's take
a look at the character han menya
this part the translation is definitely
sanitized
that's definitely not a scumbag sibaluma
is like um okay i just said it oh my
gosh on camera okay it's like um f word
it's a i would stay bastard that
kind of thing no one even says come back
anymore an interesting thing is her
background was really not explained in
the show i think the cursing and using
all these low
class
expressions the way she's expressing
that i gotta go to the bathroom in a
kind of very vulnerable way it's a it's
not cursing word but the way she
describes her state was just really
very bad linguistically it's kind of
interesting to see her background uh
through her use of language translation
is an incredibly difficult job and the
success of squid game shows how well the
show did overall overall it's pretty
accurate in terms of um
conveying the storyline i could ask a
little bit more in subtly and a little
bit like a nuance if you don't know the
language and you are have to depend on
the subtitles of course you miss a lot
of things it's not because it's the
korean language and english translation
it's any kind of language and
translation netflix international
language series continue to gain in
popularity
squid games success likely means we're
going to see more and more translations
so what can audiences take away from
discussing the nuances of the original
korean english is the lingua franca
so the everybody speaks english even if
you go to france then you can you can
you know travel speaking english
sometimes the english-speaking people
think that the other languages um are
not as sophisticated because you don't
know and they you don't speak that
language through subtitle shows you can
say okay the other language i don't know
but it has a lot of cultural you know
nuances and uh a richer in its own way