In one of the books I was teaching today, students had to choose someone they wanted to emulate and describe why they wanted to be like that person. I wanted to generate a list of people that were famous, then we could start picking people someone might want to be like, or they could get an idea for someone they liked.
The boys yelled out names of wrestlers, of course. Someone yelled out a few famous Koreans. Then a girl yelled out, “Picasso!”
“Oh! Very interesting choice! Picasso! Pablo Picasso!”
The girl got very offended and said, “Teacher! Picasso isn’t stupid! Why would you say that?”
I looked at her for a minute, thought about it, then started laughing. “PAB-LO. Not 바보!”
She thought I had said 바보 ba-bo, which is the Korean word for a fool, or a stupid person.
The entire class thought it was very funny that you’d name someone “Babo“, or anything that sounds like that in Korean. If only they knew what some of their names sounded like, or meant, in English, I think they’d be a lot more sympathetic.
