{"id":1375,"date":"2012-09-23T01:00:44","date_gmt":"2012-09-23T01:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/?p=1375"},"modified":"2024-07-18T09:34:17","modified_gmt":"2024-07-18T09:34:17","slug":"let-us-learn-korean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/2012\/09\/let-us-learn-korean\/","title":{"rendered":"Let Us Learn Korean"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Like many visitors to North Korea, we were keen to take home some examples of totalitarian kitsch. So far, however, we had been largely thwarted. Yes, we had picked up a book of Kim Jong-Il&#8217;s views <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">On the Art of Opera<\/span> (his much longer book <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">On the Art of Cinema<\/span> was sold out in English, and I didn&#8217;t have the heart to read it in French). Yes, we had picked up a biography or two of the great man himself, but so far there had been nothing suitably and inadvertently hilarious to bring home. Everything had been pretty normal.<\/p>\n<p>Or so we thought. Enter a beautiful little green phrase book, titled &#8220;Let Us Learn Korean&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>It starts off pretty slowly:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Hallo Comrade&#8221; = &#8220;Tongmu&#8221; (or &#8220;Tongji&#8221; if the comrade is a lady \u2013 very equal opportunity these Koreans)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Good morning&#8221; = &#8220;Annyong-hasimnikka&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Thank you&#8221; = &#8220;Kamsa-hamnida&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So far, so useful. In Chapter 9, however, things take a decidedly left turn. At the risk of verbosity, I am going to repeat many of the English phrases in the chapter verbatim. There will be a prize for any of our dear readers who manage to insert any of these phrases into natural conversation:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chapter 9: Sightseeing of City<br><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;What are you going to see today? &#8221; = &#8220;Onul odirul chamgwan haryo-go-hamnikka&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;I want to visit the bronze statue of Comrade Kim Il Sung first to express my condolences&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Comrade Kim Il Sung was the most distinguished leader of our times&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Comrade Kim Il Sung devoted his whole life to the freedom and welfare of the people&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Death of Comrade Kim Il Sung is a great loss to the Korean revolution and the world revolution&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;With the death of Comrade Kim Il Sung mankind lost the legendary hero, great leader&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The services rendered by Comrade Kim Il Sung will remain forever in the memory of the Korean people, and the world&#8217;s people&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;It is a miracle that Pyongyang has been built up beautifully and magnificently in such a short time&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Such a miracle is only possible in Korea led by the great leader Comrade Kim Jong Il&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And a cheery goodbye from <strong>Chapter 11: Departure<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;I saw and learned a great deal in Korea&#8221; = &#8220;Josoneso mani bogo baewot-sumnida&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;I practically felt that the Korean people are singleheartedly united behind Comrade Kim Jong Il&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Korea is the people&#8217;s paradise where there are no beggars and all people study&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Pyongyang is clean and beautiful, and seems to have the best housing conditions in the world&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;All the Korean people are good-mannered, diligent and modest&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Korean people long for national reunification&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The United States must get out South Korea. It has no grounds for remaining in South Korea&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Goodbye&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I hope you have all been paying attention. There will be a test on this later.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/091912_0627_LetUsLearnK1.jpg\" alt=\"\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/091912_0627_LetUsLearnK2.jpg\" alt=\"\"><\/p>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Like many visitors to North Korea, we were keen to take home some examples of totalitarian kitsch. So far, however, we had been largely thwarted. Yes, we had picked up a book of Kim Jong-Il&#8217;s views On the Art of &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/2012\/09\/let-us-learn-korean\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1375"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2635,"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375\/revisions\/2635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}