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- Topic: Korean >
- "병을 먹지 마라!"
17 Comments
i don't know of it as an expression, but i think they just meant it could also be interpreted as "don't eat the illness," which sounds like telling someone not to get sick
it's like a half-literal half-metaphorical expression because most common illnesses are spread through your mouth/spit
I posted this below, but in English "don't eat the bottle" means don't swap spit with excessive mouth contact on a shared bottle as you pass the wine flask (or whatever) around to share. It's also pretty old and not really used much, so it didn't occur to me they were referring to that old phrase, and I thought they were being funny and warning you to avoid eating glass. But, it's meant as a half-joke to request that you not immerse the bottle into your mouth when taking a drink to reduce drinking other people's germs and spreading your own. I didn't realize the equivalent in Korean was more directly about illness. Very interesting discussion!
Do you mean the Fender P-Bass, or the cute corgie? Addendum to my last: I have probably heard this phrase much more often in recording when people say "don't eat the mic" meaning microphone.
When I first read this I thought that there was no way that's what it actually meant. It is what it meant LOL
Shouldn't "Do not eat a bottle" also be correct? It marked it as wrong when I entered that.
I have had this problem twice today where the article "a" was not an acceptable replacement for "the" when Korean doesn't have articles. However, reading over these comments, "Don't eat the bottle" meaning don't spread germs by putting your mouth all over a shared bottle reminded me that this was an actual, though outdated, colloquialism. It would be nice to have a blanket rule that "a/an" and "the" are just interchangeable when translating Korean to English. Without context, it isn't always obvious which was more accurate.
The expression "Don't drink from the bottle!" would be "byung ae suh mukji mara!" Excuse my konglish I don't have Korean type set up yet.
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As the level progresses I started seeing more and more interestingly odd sentences like this. I literally do look twice at the sentences to think what they really say. Whether these odd expressions are true or not, they absolutely make it easier for you to remember since they are used in very odd/surprising ways.
The English phrase is "Do not eat the bottle", which is not used heavily in the U.S., but it only makes sense from the perspective that you are sharing a bottled drink with other people and you don't want to spread germs by putting the bottle into your mouth. (It is more appropriate to barely touch the shared bottle with your lips.) I have heard "Don't eat the microphone," which is when a singer or speaker gets so close to the microphone that you bump into it with your mouth, spreading germs or getting spit on the microphone. Even though the phrase isn't said often, since it refers to a specific bottle or microphone, "a" is only a literal translation and doesn't actually convey the meaning behind the phrase. (I hope that makes more sense than the previous posts regarding this phrase.)
"Don't drink the bottle!" should be accepted or it should be the main answer.
That's incorrect in English. Closest would be "Don't drink from the bottle" but that's not what it says in Korean, does it?
Korean translates 먹다 to "drink" or "eat" depending on the context, but it still has to be meaningful in English.
