quick question

[kaigou]

For the Korean or Korean-familiar folks on my flist, there seem to be several ways to anglicize the honorific, but I'm not sure if there's some rule going on here or if it's just personal preference or something:

ajusshi
ajeoshi
ajeosshi

is there a most-common or most-accepted way to anglicize it?


I see the 'eo' for 'u' every now and then, like 'Jeong' for 'Jung', but I've also noticed that this 'eo' gets included most often when it's a Chinese-speaking person doing the anglicizing. Maybe it's an ear-thing, in terms of the sounds we're primed to hear, depending on our language, so to Mandarin-ears, the 'u' sounds closest to the sound that'd get an 'eo' combination in pinyin, or something?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

This is kinda confusing, but when Korean is romanized, "u" is used to represent three different vowels: 어 (eo), 으 (eu), 우 (u)

(don't forget that the "ㅇ" is silent! the vowels also look like this: ㅓ(eo), ㅜ (u), ㅡ (eu))

it seems to me (in listening) that the "eo" often sounds to my ears a lot like the French "eu" sound

What you are hearing is most likely not ㅓ(eo), but ㅡ (eu)! ㅓ(eo) is pronounced like "awe" (sorry I didn't say this earlier; I didn't think of it :( ), but ㅡ (eu) is pronounced, like you said, similar to the french "eu".

For example, the word "hangeul" (한글, 한 = han, 글 = geul) is also written as "hangul."

Just throwing it in here, but 우 (u) is like the Japanese "u" (like the "ou" in "you") It is romanized as "u" and occasionaly "oo" (for example "soohyun" instead of "suhyun" <--although technically it should be "soohyeon"/"suhyeon"), depending on which ever one looks more "right"

Hmmm, I think you could use "ajeosshi" if you wanted to. Although "ajusshi" is more common, I've seen "ajeosshi" a fair amount of times. It's such a distinctive word that minor spelling changes hardly matter (and tbh, I prefer "ajeosshi" too ^^).

In case you were interested in other honorifics:
-"hyung" is way more common, but "hyeong" is perfectly acceptable
-"unnie"/"unni" is by far more common; "eonni" not advised
-"noona" is more common, but "nuna" is almost as common
-"oppa" is the only way I've seen it so far
-"omoni" and "eomeoni" are interchangeable
-"abeoji" is the only way I've seen it so far
-"umma" is way more common, but "eomma" works too
-"appa" is the only way I've seen it so far
-"noona" is more common, but "nuna" is almost as common
-"-seonsaeng" is the more common way
-"-sshi" and "-shi" are used equally
-"-nim" is the only way I've seen it so far
-"maknae" and "magnae" are used equally

And I can't help but answer this question:
I had the same problem looking for Ho Dduk. Ho Dduk got more hits, but ho ddeok and even ho tteok were used maybe a third of the time, and sometimes hyphenated and sometimes one word.

The hangeul for this is : 호떡

호 is the consonant ㅎ (which has the "h" sound) + and the vowel ㅗ (which kinda has the long o sound). Combined, they form the sound "ho".

떡 is the double consonant ㄸ + the vowel ㅓ + the end consonant ㄱ

"ㄸ" is the consonant "ㄷ" doubled, so to speak, so that means it's stressed. "ㄷ" is a tricky sound that is in between a "t" and a "d", depending on the individual speaking and the word being said. Thus, when "ㄷ" is doubled into "ㄸ", one could spell it as "t", "d", "tt, or "dd". It's all up to personal taste ^^

As mentioned earlier, ㅓ can be spelled as "u" or "eo", and "ㄱ" is the "k" sound.

Thus, 떡 can be spelled "tuk", "teok", "ttuk", "tteok", "duk", "deok", or "ddeok". Personally, I prefer to spell it as "hotteok", but to each their own~ (whether it's one word, two words or hyphenated is also up to the individual)

[kaigou]

I'm used to the variations in Japanese anglicizing, since I have a Japanese-language student in the house who's explained those before. I learned pinyin myself, though I have several (much older) dictionaries that date from the Wade-Giles era. In some ways, pinyin is more economical with its anglicizing, but Wade-Giles makes more sense on a visual level. Xiao vs Hsiao, that kind of thing -- there just aren't a lot of words that start with X in English, so mentally it's a tripwire compared to the intuitive sense that the "h" in "hs" means you're supposed to aspirate the "s" sound.

But I have to admit that this makes me flail about somewhere between fear and excitement: 떡 can be spelled "tuk", "teok", "ttuk", "tteok", "duk", "deok", or "ddeok" ... and here I thought the difficulties of anglicizing Arabic were high. Wow.

again, thank you!