::A Geek in Korea::

Warning: Post contains some foul language. Blame John McClane.

Occasionally I’ll watch television for the chance to practice reading Korean subtitles. There is a lot of potential knowledge, and a lot of humor that can be gained from this as well. I was watching a tabloid style entertainment show that was subtitled in Korean. These are great, because they are usually about a month old, so even I know what the "hottest rumors" are, and I don’t even follow Hollywood gossip. The episode had a piece about how aging Hollywood stars were signing up to do sequels of old action movies.

The clip they showed was from one of the "Die Hard" movies. I personally dislike the Die Hard movies, but even I had seen them a few times. The clip had Bruce Willis about to exit from a door. He held up his gun, then said, "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker."

The subtitles translated "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker" as "나는 간다" (Na-nun kand-a) or "I’m going."

I nearly fell off the couch laughing at the absurdity of the translation. That’s what he was doing, but something was lost in translation. My wife heard me laughing, so I had to explain what I thought was so funny. Then it struck me. What exactly does "Yippee-ki-yay motherfucker!" mean? How would I explain something as random and foul in a way that would appropriately express what it meant?

Do cowboys say, "Yippee-ki-yay?" I thought so, but why? Did they say it before the movie Die Hard was released? Does that help me explain things or not? Do I really want my wife cursing like this character if I do manage to explain it well enough? Probably not.

Perhaps the life of a subtitle author is full of such constant doubt and fear of mistranslation that they simple ignore such pondering and simply state what they know to be true. However, if such an expression was key to understanding a character, and by ignoring context you lose part of the "charm" of John McClane, are you really doing your job of trying to make a movie comprehensible to foreigners?

What about other movies I’ve watched that have heavily featured subtitles with swearing? How much of their meaning have I missed? It’s times like this we need a babblefish.

My wife was watching television when she said, "What the…a Nintendo DS commercial?"

Nintendo doesn’t have any sort of presence in Korea in the advertising space outside of hardcore import shops. That is, until now. They are now officially promoting the Korean version of Brain training, as well as a version of English educational study that focuses on listening and dictation for the TOEIC tests that are popular here. They have testimonials (kids studying English!) and spokes person playing the game.

This is a wonderful time to get the word out, as the Lunar New Year celebrations are coming around, and children get the bulk of their spending cash for the entire year in the next few weeks.
I’ve been saying this for three years now since the launch of the Nintendo DS. Once English learning software gets published on this machine, there will be a wildfire move for adoption as a hardware platform. It’s online, it’s portable, it’s cheaper that a phone, and students can study and play games on it. My students that have seen a DS lite didn’t know what it was, and it’s been on sale for nearly a year in Korea. Unless you go to game stores, it’s just not a common sight. Once mother’s hear they can buy a gadget that can double as a dictionary, a game machine, a portable internet browser, and a study tool, they’re going to be all over it.

You have no idea how boring it is to teach TOEIC. You play a tape, the students circle an answer. You play a cd, they write down something. The students hate it. The teachers hate it. Watch this testimonial and see girls HAVING FUN studying. This is going to be huge.

It’s so rare they my hobby and my job collide.