Why Korean to English is harder than it looks
Korean has several speech levels, and English has none. The same sentence ends differently for a friend, a colleague and a customer, and the ending carries the whole social relationship. Translated into English, all of them become the same flat sentence unless the wording is chosen to restore it.
Subjects disappear once they are understood. 보고 싶어요 has no “I” and no “you” in it; both are obvious in context. English insists on them, so the translator has to work out who is missing before it can write the sentence.
Age and status change the words you use. 형, 오빠, 언니 and 누나 all mean an older sibling, chosen by the speaker’s own gender, and they are used for friends as well as family. Translating them as “brother” or “sister” tells an English reader something untrue.
The verb is last and carries the negation. A long Korean sentence can reverse its meaning in the final syllable. Word-by-word translation gets this wrong more often than any other single thing, which is why the whole sentence has to be read first.
Written by Hardik Vegad, Co-founder, Translatify. Last updated .
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