- [Narrator] Korean speakers
watching the Netflix series "Squid Game"
were quick to point out that the English translations
didn't always match up to the dialogue.
Wired reached out to Korean language professor Joowon Suh,
to see what English speakers might be missing out on.
- This part, the translation is definitely sanitized.
Two main differences I noticed in translations
are address terms
[Ali speaks in Korean]
and the swearing expressions.
[Mi-nyeo speaks in Korean]
- [Narrator] Today we're gonna be talking
about English subtitles.
Not the dumb version.
- Do you know where your son happens to be now?
- On business in the United States.
- [Narrator] That's a whole nother video.
So let's start with the address terms.
[Mi-nyeo speaks in Korean]
[Deok-su speaks in Korean] [Ali speaks in Korean]
[Gi-hun speaks in Korean] [Mi-nyeo speaks in Korean]
- [Narrator] Pay attention to the translated word sir
in this scene in episode two,
between Ali, the Pakistani immigrant
and Sang-woo, the stockbroker.
[Sang-woo speaks in Korean]
- The meaning of Sajangnim 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 Sajangnim.
[Ali speaks in Korean]
- Ali is using that Sajangnim
and calling a lot of male characters that in the show.
- [Narrator] Korean speakers use honorifics constantly
when speaking to each other.
You can hear it here,
[Ali speaks in Korean]
here,
[Gi-hun speaks in Korean]
and here.
[Gi-hun speaks in Korean]
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 Sang-woo asks Ali
to call him by his first name.
[Sang-woo speaks in Korean]
he's actually using this term.
[Sang-woo speaks in Korean]
- Sang-woo 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 refers to older brother,
elder brother of a man.
That Hyung word as a big brother
is extended to other social relationships.
So then it 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 marble scene,
it was really heartbreaking
when Ali keeps calling [she speaks in Korean]
[Ali speaks in Korean]
So basically he thinks
that Sang-woo is almost like a brother to him,
that he was betrayed.
[somber music]
[Ali speaks in Korean]
In that sense, it's more heartbreaking
if you know what Hyung and Sajangnim mean
in the Korean language.
- [Narrator] Another example
of an honorific-sharing relationship
is Han Mi-nyeo's use of Oppa.
[Mi-nyeo speaks in Korean]
[Deok-su speaks in Korean]
[Mi-nyeo speaks in Korean]
- I don't think babe is a accurate translation for Oppa.
Oppa means older brother to a woman.
Oppa is 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 between man and a woman,
a woman starts calling the other man Oppa,
that means that it's like,
okay, we are getting closer as a woman and a man.
Han Mi-nyeo character was trying to do that
with the Jang Deok-su character.
[Mi-neyo speaks in Korean]
[Deok-su speaks in Korean]
- [Narrator] Because Oppa implies
that the woman is younger than the man,
when Deok-su says, "Is that right?"
[Deok-su speaks in Korean]
he's actually saying he's not older than her.
- It's not like, I'm not a man or you are not a woman,
it's more like you look older than I am.
There's a switch to age difference
and she asks him,
"How old do you think I am?"
and then he's saying 49 and 39, 29
and he was playing with that age thing.
Address terms are extremely difficult
when you have to translate the Korean into English.
- [Narrator] Next up, let's talk about swearing.
- In some translations,
Korean cursing words are translated
into scumbag, jerk and idiot.
They don't really convey the harshness
of the Korean cursing words, cursing expressions.
[Deok-su speaks in Korean]
[Gi-hun speaks in Korean]
[119 speaks in Korean]
The word sae-kki is translated into jerk
most of the time
but I don't think it's the right translation.
Sae-kki literally means the baby animal,
like a baby of any animals.
If you do that,
you are basically cursing at your mother.
[Deok-su speaks in Korean]
So that's the whole idea,
but I think it's a little bit more serious than jerk.
[Deok-su speaks in Korean]
- [Narrator] 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 also kind of stands out to me.
- [Narrator] Let's take a look at the character Han Mi-nyeo.
[Mi-nyeo speaks in Korean]
- This part, the translation is definitely sanitized.
[Mi-nyeo speaks in Korean]
That's definitely not scumbag.
Shibalnom is like-
okay, I just said it.
Oh my gosh, on camera.
Okay. It's like F word.
It's, I would say [beep] bastard.
That kind of thing.
No one even says scumbag anymore.
An interesting thing is,
her background was really not explained in the show.
I think the cursing
and using all this low-class expressions,
the way she's expressing that
"I gotta go to the bathroom."
in a very vulgar way,
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 through her use of language.
- [Narrator] 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 conveying the storyline.
I could ask a little bit more in subtlety
and a little bit like nuance.
If you don't know the language
and you 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.
- [Narrator] Netflix international language series
continue to gain in popularity.
"Squid Game's" success likely means
we're gonna 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 everybody speaks English.
Even if you go to France,
then you can travel speaking English.
Sometimes the English speaking people think
that the other languages are not as a sophisticated
because you don't know,
and you don't speak that language.
Through subtitled shows,
you can say, okay, the other language I don't know,
but it has a lot of cultural nuances
and are richer in its own way.