Friday, October 10, 2008

No soup for me!

As I've said before, many Korean letters have sounds in between different English sounds, such as B and P, D and T, L and R, and so on. Their character that looks like a doodle of Space Mountain and is supposed to sound like "S" actually, in their pronunciation, sounds more like "Sh", which makes it fun when the littluns have to read "Sit down" in their books. (There are three or four channels on cable that carry nothing but English lessons, and I actually saw that very point discussed on one program-- the Korean people on the show, when it was explained to them, thought it was hilarious.) I've seen the same Korean place name in English with a B on one sign and a P on another across the street.

What I didn't expect, though, was that somehow that can lead to mixing up letters even when they're writing a word that's already in English. Who knew? For example, I've seen a street sign directing people to the "Seoseung Brdg." and another for "Samduk Hosbital".

The champ, though, is a menu item in a little restaurant near the US Army's Camp Walker:

CRAP CREAM SOUP.

1 comment:

Dharma said...

I sure do hope you turn these blogs into a book. They are so delightful. I haven't read anything in a while. I was elected the chairperson for the District 2 Drama group, so I've been busy with that and school,of course.Today was the last day of the quarter, and I'm sure you remember what that's like. The pictures are so awesome. It makes me yearn for the mountains. Tom and I usually go to NC every third summer or so, and I think we'll have to do it this year. I'm so glad you got to keep your apartment. I walked around depressed for days thinking you would get stuck in the dorm. Let me hear from you.
Love,
Flower Child