An interesting conversation (of sorts)
Friday, May 30th, 2008Occasionally I will get a strange phone call. If I don’t recognize the number, I always answer in Korean, and usually it’s someone who dialed the wrong number. Sometimes, just hearing my 안녕하세요 is enough to make them simply hang up. Other times I’ll hear something along the lines of “김민수 헨드폰 안이에요?” Isn’t this 김민수’s phone?)
Anyway, I recently received a strange text message, so I responded…here’s the transcript. I left the Koreans messages exactly as they were, so you can get a feel for the oddities of txting in Korean..and any mistakes I made ^^
그녀:안녕하세용ㅎ싸이에서봤어용ㅎ친구하자해성ㅎ
Her: Hello, I saw you on Cyworld, let’s be friends
나: 근데 누구시죠?
Me: But who is this?
그녀: 컴터하다싸이에서봤어용..ㅎ;;은국?!
Her: I was using the computer and I saw you on Cyworld…은국?! (maybe a name?)
나: 기억못났거든요…언제 만났어요 우리? 그리고 이름은요?
Me: I don’t remember. When did we meet? And what’s your name?
그녀: 친추했는데안했나보내용ㅎ;;김ㅇㅇ이라고합니다
Her: I added you as a friend, (but you didn’t add me) My name is 김ㅇㅇ
나: 저는 미국 온 오스틴인데 저한테 연락허고 싶었어요?
Me: I’m Austin from America. Did you want to contact me?
그녀: 그런거없었는데요;;안락하기시름하질마시지요;;에이형아라서연락했어요ㅜ;;
Her: It’s nothing like that, if you don’t want to contact me, then don’t. I am A blood type so I contacted you.
나:^^ 좋아요 근데 번호가 어떻게 알아요…궁금해요
Me: OK, but how do you know my number, I’m curious.
그녀: 클럽에얀락하라고적어놓으신거아니예요?!ㅎ미국어디살아용?!ㅎ
Her: Didn’t you tell me to write it down and contact you at the Cyworld club? Where do you live in America?
I didn’t even get a chance to respond because just a few seconds later SHE CALLED ME! I was just about to teach a class, so I couldn’t talk long, but manged to learn that she is 24. She also reiterated that she is A blod type, and that’s why she was contacting me. (More on that later)
There are a lot of interesting things going on in those text messages. First is that Koreans generally leave out spaces in messages. IfIleaveoutthespacesitsavesroom! You’d think that it would make it hard to read, and it does. But with practice it’s not so bad. Originally, Korean wasn’t written with standard English punctuation anyway, so they aren’t 100% necessary. Second, even with a dictionary, some of those messages are completely unreadable. Koreans really like to compress sentences, leaving out whole pieces that makes it impossible for me to understand! Third, notice that she uses other marks like ㅎ and ; to make a space. This is probably because it is faster to type those than to make the space on her phone. There are a few different ways the Korean alphabet is arranged on cell phones, which makes for slightly different methods for typing text messages. Anyway, it’s all in an effort to speed up the input. Koreans (especially students) are SUPER fast at typing their messages.
Also notice the strange ending to some of her sentences: 안녕하세용 I’m told it is just another way to make it sound cuter.
Back to the blood type issue. There is a cultural belief that your blood type has strong influence on your personality and character. The blood type of your boy/girlfriend also supposedly influences your relationship. I’m not very well versed, but I can tell you that people who are A type are believed to be very outgoing, friendly and socialable. I guess that fits this girl!
**Special thanks to 선현우 for deciphering parts of those messages! And to Matthew for providing the only category that could really describe this post
Posted by 오민 (Austin) in How Koreans Do It |
May 30th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Also the semicolons are like nervous sweat drops running down the side of a comic book character’s face.
I miss texting in Koren. It was a fun challenge.
May 30th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
I’ve had wild and wacky experiences texting in French. Words in French are already not at all spelled how they’re said…when they’re truncated, twisted and deformed to fit texting conventions, it becomes a powerful elixir that provokes both a violent headache and severe anguish and regret at what painfully atrocious things can be done to human language. Is that how you’d describe Korean texting?
I can’t make sense of the Korean text in this entry, but that’s as much due to my level as anything else. It looks intimidating - my eyes don’t want to rest on it long enough to read.
May 31st, 2008 at 2:37 am
I’ll do my best to try to convert the texting to standard Korean and add explanation:
그녀:안녕하세용ㅎ싸이에서봤어용ㅎ친구하자해성ㅎ
안녕하세요. 싸이(월드)에서 봤어요. 친구하자고 해서 (연학하고 있어요)
Her: Hello, I saw you on Cyworld, let’s be friends
나: 근데 누구시죠?
Me: But who is this?
그녀: 컴터하다싸이에서봤어용..ㅎ;;은국?!
컴퓨터를 하다가 싸이(월드)에서 봤어요. 은국?
Her: I was using the computer and I saw you on Cyworld…은국?! (maybe a name?)
나: 기억못났거든요…언제 만났어요 우리? 그리고 이름은요?
Me: I don’t remember. When did we meet? And what’s your name?
그녀: 친추했는데안했나보내용ㅎ;;김ㅇㅇ이라고합니다
친구추가했는데 안 했나 보네요. 김ㅇㅇ이라고 합니다.
Her: I added you as a friend, (but you didn’t add me) My name is 김ㅇㅇ
나: 저는 미국 온 오스틴인데 저한테 연락허고 싶었어요?
Me: I’m Austin from America. Did you want to contact me?
그녀: 그런거없었는데요;;안락하기시름하질마시지요;;에이형아라서연락했어요ㅜ;;
그런 거 없었는데요. 연락하기 싫음 하지 마시지요. A형이라서 연락했어요.
Her: It’s nothing like that, if you don’t want to contact me, then don’t. I am A blood type so I contacted you.
나:^^ 좋아요 근데 번호가 어떻게 알아요…궁금해요
Me: OK, but how do you know my number, I’m curious.
그녀: 클럽에얀락하라고적어놓으신거아니예요?!ㅎ미국어디살아용?!ㅎ
클럽에 연락하라고 적어 놓으신 거 아니예요? 미국 어디에 살아요?
Her: Didn’t you tell me to write it down and contact you at the Cyworld club? Where do you live in America?
May 31st, 2008 at 3:17 am
Is the blood type gum still vailable in Korea? As I recall it had a blood type and a fortune of sorts on the wrapper… interesting but the gum wasn’t so great as I recall…
May 31st, 2008 at 6:06 am
i have noticed that people make jokes about blood type (at least on tv). in america, people make blonde jokes - in korea, people make AB jokes. haha.. i don’t even know what blood type i am. is that weird?
May 31st, 2008 at 6:29 am
I only know that I’m O- because I have donated before. I’m a universal donor so my blood is in high demand. The Red Cross is always sending me e-mails asking for my blood.
May 31st, 2008 at 10:23 am
Hmmm…what jokes do they make about A+ blood?
May 31st, 2008 at 11:56 am
Wow, I didn’t know the Red Cross emails people for blood now. How long have they been doing this?
May 31st, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Once you give blood at a Red Cross sponsored blood drive, you get onto a list. Same with metropolitan blood banks, etc.
June 1st, 2008 at 4:49 am
Anti blood bank here!
S_R_C
June 1st, 2008 at 6:25 am
Austin - you’ve just inspired me to add Blood Typing to my blog. I’ll add it to the queue of topics. Expect it sometime in late July.
As far as the conversation, one must wonder…yeah we have vishing and other weird forms of communication here in the U.S. but this one ranks up there with pretty darn strange. You must be knocking them dead over there (or at least left a good impression on your profile!)
Taken from MC Hammer: Please Austin, don’t hurt’em!
June 1st, 2008 at 3:12 pm
matthew…
The thing is, I don’t have a cyworld!!! So I think somebody named “은국” does and somehow she got the number confused…then when she realized she had found a foreigner, she was intrigued…
Bouks…
I’ve shown the messages to Koreans who are baffled by what it means. The same is probably true for older English speakers who wonder what in the world things like LOL, L8R, POS, and the like mean…I know I’m falling behind in my internet-speak.
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:29 am
So I’ve had the blood types explained to me by a Korean ESL student here. Here’s what I remember. Sorry AB-types, but he didn’t know anything about you.
O-type: 분위기 메이커 - Concerned about lifting the mood of everyone around
Hates being alone and likes making friends
A-type: Over-analyzes comments that people say to them
B-type: Have a tendency to be “psycho”
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Hmm so that would mean my ex-wife is type B….and my current wife is type A. Now it all makes since!
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:21 pm
or sense…..hmmm I could never get those right.
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:48 am
My blood type is O so is that true? S_R_C
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:15 am
I made a non-English speaking Korean friend, and at first when we spoke, he used a lot of slang in his text messages– not as much as this girl, but still, hard for me to understand. I think eventually I made it clear that while I speak more Korean than the average foreigner, I am by no means fluent. And even if I were fluent in standard Korean, that would not qualify me to decipher txt-slang messages.
Is anyone aware of any books on Korean internet/txting slang? It would be interesting, I’m sure…