Korean Phrases You Missed in 'Squid Game'

Korean Phrases You Missed in 'Squid Game'

The on-screen English translations of 'Squid Game' didn't always match up to the characters' dialogue.

Korean English professor and director of the Korean Language Program at Columbia University, Joowon Suh, is here to explain the phrases English speakers might have missed out on while watching the hit Netflix show.

- [Narrator] Korean speakerswatching the Netflix series "Squid Game"were quick to point out thatthe English translationsdidn't always match up to the dialogue.Wired reached out to Koreanlanguage professor Joowon Suh,to see what English speakersmight be missing out on.- This part, the translationis definitely sanitized.Two main differences Inoticed in translationsare address terms[Ali speaks in Korean]and the swearing expressions.[Mi-nyeo speaks in Korean]- [Narrator] Today we're gonna be talkingabout English subtitles.Not the dumb version.- Do you know where yourson 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.[Deok-su speaks in Korean][Ali speaks in Korean][Gi-hun speaks in Korean][Mi-nyeo speaks in Korean]- [Narrator] Pay attentionto the translated word sirin this scene in episode two,between Ali, the Pakistani immigrantand Sang-woo, the stockbroker.[Sang-woo speaks in Korean]- The meaning of Sajangnimis the president of companyor CEO of the company.The meaning itself is extendedto many different situations,so anybody who looks like in a suitand then a little bit older,and then everybody startscalling that person Sajangnim.- Ali is using that Sajangnimand calling a lot of malecharacters that in the show.- [Narrator] Korean speakersuse honorifics constantlywhen speaking to each other.You can hear it here,here,[Gi-hun speaks in Korean]and here.It would be impossibleto translate all of these in "Squid Game"because they're so ubiquitous,but the way the charactersaddress each othershows the evolution of the relationship.Listen carefully when Sang-woo asks Alito call him by his first name.he's actually using this term.- Sang-woo asks Ali to call him Hyung,then he's using intimate ending.In the Korean language,we don't call each otherby our first names.We are not really firstname based society.Hyung refers to older brother,elder brother of a man.That Hyung word as a big brotheris 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 otherand we are getting closer.That's why that marble scene,it was really heartbreakingwhen Ali keeps calling[she speaks in Korean]So basically he thinksthat Sang-woo is almostlike a brother to him,that he was betrayed.[somber music]In that sense, it's more heartbreakingif you know what Hyung and Sajangnim meanin the Korean language.- [Narrator] Another exampleof an honorific-sharing relationshipis Han Mi-nyeo's use of Oppa.[Deok-su speaks in Korean]- I don't think babe is aaccurate translation for Oppa.Oppa means older brother to a woman.Oppa is definitely a family term,a family relationship termbut at the same time,it's extended to a romantic relationshipbetween 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 closeras a woman and a man.Han Mi-nyeo characterwas trying to do thatwith the Jang Deok-su character.[Mi-neyo speaks in Korean]- [Narrator] Because Oppa impliesthat the woman is younger than the man,when Deok-su says, "Is that right?"he's actually sayinghe's not older than her.- It's not like, I'm not aman or you are not a woman,it's more like you look older than I am.There's a switch to age differenceand she asks him,"How old do you think I am?"and then he's saying 49 and 39, 29and he was playing with that age thing.Address terms are extremely difficultwhen you have to translatethe Korean into English.- [Narrator] Next up,let's talk about swearing.- In some translations,Korean cursing words are translatedinto scumbag, jerk and idiot.They don't really convey the harshnessof the Korean cursingwords, cursing expressions.[119 speaks in Korean]The word sae-kki is translated into jerkmost of the timebut I don't think it'sthe 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.So that's the whole idea,but I think it's a littlebit more serious than jerk.- [Narrator] One of thedifficulties of translationis conveying meaning quicklybecause subtitles arerarely over two lines.But what's lost in translationwhen a swear word istranslated to a PG term?- It's not just about swearing wordsand some expressions are very vulgarand that also kind of stands out to me.- [Narrator] Let's take a lookat the character Han Mi-nyeo.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 reallynot explained in the show.I think the cursingand 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 wordbut the way she describes her statewas just really very bad.Linguistically it's kind of interestingto see her backgroundthrough her use of language.- [Narrator] Translation isan incredibly difficult joband the success of "Squid Game"shows how well the show did overall.- Overall, it's pretty accuratein terms of conveying the storyline.I could ask a little bit more in subtletyand a little bit like nuance.If you don't know the languageand you have to depend on the subtitles,of course you miss a lot of things.It's not because it's the Korean languageand English translation,it's any kind of language and translation.- [Narrator] Netflixinternational language seriescontinue to gain in popularity."Squid Game's" success likely meanswe're gonna see moreand more translations.So what can audiences take awayfrom discussing the nuancesof the original Korean?- English is the lingua francaso everybody speaks English.Even if you go to France,then you can travel speaking English.Sometimes the Englishspeaking people thinkthat the other languagesare not as a sophisticatedbecause you don't know,and you don't speak that language.Through subtitled shows,you can say, okay, theother language I don't know,but it has a lot of cultural nuancesand are richer in its own way.