4 ms·

Is there the Korean equivalent of very formal language, such as: "Dear honoured sir, may I humbly beg for your indulgence in a meagre glass of beer?"

famouswaffles 4y ago
Formality and politeness is baked into Korean and you are basically always speaking at the right formality unless you ignore the rules. Your relationship to who you're speaking to (and who you are referring to if you speak about anyone else) changes the grammar of the sentence. The grammar changes mostly manifest in different suffix endings.
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  How do noble or formal titles work then? It seems very unlikely to just be a suffix ending.
  - famouswaffles 4y ago
    The rules for how you speak to people and how you address people you are speaking about are different. The whole thing is a bit more complex than suffix changes alone especially with more out there titles but generally speaking, I think you've seen a bit on how the endings would change depending on your relationship to the hearer. For the latter(addressing people you're speaking about) For instance, You would basically never call an acquaintance just by name Take the name 김영철 If you were on relatively equal social standing, you would generally address 김영철 as 김영철 씨 or 영철 씨 If you wanted to take it a step further in respect, you would replace 씨 with 님 For a senior in age or experience in say the workplace, it would become 선배 but this can be used to address the person on its own without the name attached. There are also different words for how you would address different members of the family. Unlike in English, you would basically never call an older brother or sister by their actual name. It's more a generic brother or sister word that changes depending on if the speaker is male or female. 오빠 - female referring to older brother 형 - male referring to older brother 누나 - male referring to older sister 언니 - female referring to older sister For royalty, there'll be different titles for different members of the royalty.
  - famouswaffles 4y ago
    Forgot to mention. The brother/sister words don't necessarily need to be referring to an actual brother or sister. They can be used endearingly to refer to older males/females you are close to. 오빠 can be used somewhat flirtingly/romantically as well
devonkim 4y ago
Using the wrong register is a form of humor as well just like in English and other languages but with different impact due to the politeness level being so important to the syntactic structure just like in Japanese. Being overly polite or using too low of a register works much better than sarcasm for comedic purposes for reasons I can’t quite explain. In English sarcasm is commonly how I joke around and involves an intonation cue but it doesn’t really work in Korean even with intonation (possibly because intonation and vowel lengthening is used for a lot of word distinction perhaps although homonyms exist in basically all languages) and if you try it native speakers will oftentimes have trouble telling if you’re serious or not. Although these days due to Western influences IMO most Koreans understand sarcasm as a style of humor and can apply it for all languages although for older generations it’s going to be less natural. The country’s had massive, massive social and economic changes in the past 100 years, it’s kind of wild
KMnO4 4y ago
There are many levels of honorifics, from very low form to very polite form. Most aren’t used on a daily basis though, just like how most people don’t speak like they’re a lawyer addressing a courtroom. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_honorifics#Addressee_honorification https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_honorifics#Addressee_...
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  I tried translating it with a tool: "존경하는 각하, 맥주 한 잔만 드시게 해달라고 겸손히 부탁드려도 될까요?" Does that sound about right?
  - jinwoo68 4y ago
    Close. But 드시게 is not correct in that place because its an honorific form given to yourself when you're trying to honor the other person. And I'd rather use 감히 instead of 겸손히, which can be roughly translated into "dare to" "존경하는 각하, 맥주 한 잔만 마시게 해달라고 감히 부탁드려도 될까요?"
  - johntopia 4y ago
    Another Korean here. Usually in Korea, one could refer to an unknown someone as "선생님(teacher)". "각하", on the other hand, has been referred to the President of Korea. So it really sounds weird to a Korean. When someone calls you "각하". If I were to be a customer, then I would be called "고객님". Where "고객" means customer and "님" is like "sama" in Japanese, and "sir" in English.

famouswaffles 4y ago

Formality and politeness is baked into Korean and you are basically always speaking at the right formality unless you ignore the rules. Your relationship to who you're speaking to (and who you are referring to if you speak about anyone else) changes the grammar of the sentence. The grammar changes mostly manifest in different suffix endings.

MichaelZuo 4y ago
How do noble or formal titles work then? It seems very unlikely to just be a suffix ending.
- famouswaffles 4y ago
  The rules for how you speak to people and how you address people you are speaking about are different. The whole thing is a bit more complex than suffix changes alone especially with more out there titles but generally speaking, I think you've seen a bit on how the endings would change depending on your relationship to the hearer. For the latter(addressing people you're speaking about) For instance, You would basically never call an acquaintance just by name Take the name 김영철 If you were on relatively equal social standing, you would generally address 김영철 as 김영철 씨 or 영철 씨 If you wanted to take it a step further in respect, you would replace 씨 with 님 For a senior in age or experience in say the workplace, it would become 선배 but this can be used to address the person on its own without the name attached. There are also different words for how you would address different members of the family. Unlike in English, you would basically never call an older brother or sister by their actual name. It's more a generic brother or sister word that changes depending on if the speaker is male or female. 오빠 - female referring to older brother 형 - male referring to older brother 누나 - male referring to older sister 언니 - female referring to older sister For royalty, there'll be different titles for different members of the royalty.
- famouswaffles 4y ago
  Forgot to mention. The brother/sister words don't necessarily need to be referring to an actual brother or sister. They can be used endearingly to refer to older males/females you are close to. 오빠 can be used somewhat flirtingly/romantically as well

devonkim 4y ago

Using the wrong register is a form of humor as well just like in English and other languages but with different impact due to the politeness level being so important to the syntactic structure just like in Japanese. Being overly polite or using too low of a register works much better than sarcasm for comedic purposes for reasons I can’t quite explain. In English sarcasm is commonly how I joke around and involves an intonation cue but it doesn’t really work in Korean even with intonation (possibly because intonation and vowel lengthening is used for a lot of word distinction perhaps although homonyms exist in basically all languages) and if you try it native speakers will oftentimes have trouble telling if you’re serious or not. Although these days due to Western influences IMO most Koreans understand sarcasm as a style of humor and can apply it for all languages although for older generations it’s going to be less natural. The country’s had massive, massive social and economic changes in the past 100 years, it’s kind of wild

KMnO4 4y ago

There are many levels of honorifics, from very low form to very polite form. Most aren’t used on a daily basis though, just like how most people don’t speak like they’re a lawyer addressing a courtroom. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_honorifics#Addressee_honorification https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_honorifics#Addressee_...

MichaelZuo 4y ago
I tried translating it with a tool: "존경하는 각하, 맥주 한 잔만 드시게 해달라고 겸손히 부탁드려도 될까요?" Does that sound about right?
- jinwoo68 4y ago
  Close. But 드시게 is not correct in that place because its an honorific form given to yourself when you're trying to honor the other person. And I'd rather use 감히 instead of 겸손히, which can be roughly translated into "dare to" "존경하는 각하, 맥주 한 잔만 마시게 해달라고 감히 부탁드려도 될까요?"
- johntopia 4y ago
  Another Korean here. Usually in Korea, one could refer to an unknown someone as "선생님(teacher)". "각하", on the other hand, has been referred to the President of Korea. So it really sounds weird to a Korean. When someone calls you "각하". If I were to be a customer, then I would be called "고객님". Where "고객" means customer and "님" is like "sama" in Japanese, and "sir" in English.