24 Comments
This was supposed to be added to Tips and notes but there isn't enough space there so I'm writing it here and link this page.
Transliteration
Here we see some of the first examples of English words borrowed into Korean with 텔레비전 and 라디오. In general, borrowings follow a simple set of rules, and we'll go over some of them as they arise in the course.
-
Korean has no [v] sound, so [v] is transliterated to ㅂ.
-
Korean has no [Ʒ] or zh sound either, so [Ʒ] is transliterated to ㅈ. e.g. television, measure
Remember, these are the sounds as they make sense to native Korean speakers. An English speaker might think that other options would have made more sense (like s or sh for zh) but that's just not what happens.
하고 means either with or and. Just like English you don't say "the child a friend and"; if 친구하고 came before 아이가, it could be both, but since it is after 아이가, it means with.
In this particular example, your sentence does not necessarily mean they are in the same place, whilst the Korean sentence does. Think of this example:
- I want to live with you.
- You and I want to live.
Just because a translation can be interpreted differently based on context, it doesn't make it wrong. That's a totally acceptable translation.
Alternative answers desperately need to be added on this course. This kind of inflexibility makes it borderline unusable, and often doesn't reflect how English or Korean is used in the real world.
If it just becomes a game of guessing the phrasing the course creators prefer - as it is now - it's an extremely frustrating and inefficient way to learn.
You have a point! "The child and their friend watch television." is now accepted. For anyone interested I will not delete my comment above; some people like to know the difference in nuance.
Inflexibility mainly comes from the fact that alternative answers are all manually added, not that we want to impose strict standards on learners. When your legit translation is rejected, chances are we just forgot to add it to the system, not we think it is incorrect. Flag it and we will review. As you said, Korean and English are different and hundreds of different translations are possible for each sentence; we might have omitted many of them.
Thank you very much and happy learning!
Totally agree. There are bizarrely strict answers peppered throughout the course. Another one that keeps coming up for me is "갑니다" must be oddly translated as "On my way".
i normally don't understand why do the xourses have ao much focus on 읍/습니다 and not 요 that is 100 times more usable
In the next tree 해요체 may actually come before 합쇼체. It is just the upper part of the tree.
No, it's not. While the meaning is similar, look at where the subject particle is. 아이가 (Child-subject) is the subject of the sentence. If it were 아이하고 친구가 (Child-and friend-subject), then your translation would be correct.
I would say, "The child and his/her friend watch television together" to get the specific meaning.
Now I'm really confused. I thought 하고 means 'and'. So why is the translation together? I thought there were other terms for the word 'together'. Shouldn't this sentence just be the child and the friend watch television (without the word together)????
하고/과/랑(이랑)/와 can mean "And" if it is between two nouns
나와 너 - Me and you 나하고 너 -Me and you 나과 너- " 나랑 너- "
But if those 4 are added in a noun and there is no noun next to it it will mean With+(the noun)
For animated nouns, one uses the affix -들. Not grammatically required, but it is always used unless plurality is implied otherwise.
needs to be edited...there is no reason for it to be "his" friend here since "child" is used instead of "boy". It should be "The child watches television with ITS friend" or "The child watches television with THEIR friend"
I don't think anyone would say "its friend", but their friend has always been accepted. Are you sure you didn't have a typo elsewhere?
Actually, "with HIS/HER/A friend" are better options, as long as all are accepted. A child is not an "it," and "their" is nonstandard.
