Lost--the Korean episode this week - cougarguard.com — unofficial BYU Cougars / LDS sports, football, basketball forum and message board

jay santos · 04-27-2007, 03:52 PM

I've mentioned this before but I love how authentic Lost makes the Korean language and culture. Very impressive attention to detail. They do an excellent job translating because usually translations on TV seem to be written in English first, and then translated directly and awkwardly into the native language. Not so with Lost. It almost seems to be written in Korean by native Korean first with attention to the culture and native language, and then translated back to English.

Example: "yobo" translated Mr. Kwon and Mrs. Kwon. Jin calls Sun and calls her yobo. And they translate it "Mrs. Kwon", and she says in English it feels so strange to be caled Mrs. Kwon. Later she calls him "yobo" and they translate it Mr. Kwon. At first I thought, how stupid they're not translating the Korean right at all. But actually they were translating the intent. "Yobo" means honey or dear and is usually always used between husband and wife. So the intent and feeling is the same as calling each other Mr. Kwon and Mrs. Kwon and that was the best way to translate the intent into English.

Example 2: When Jin's mother threatened Sun, Sun said in Korean "what did you say?". The meaning wasn't in the actual words but in the way she expressed it and the body language and inflection. In English it was translated "How rude!" which would infer the same meaning.

They also do an excellent job in using honorific/respectful/casual/intimate/rude verb endings (as you probably know Japanese and Korean have a wide variety of endings that express specific meaning) that give more meaning to some of the scenes in Korean than you catch in English.

Theory on Sun's pregnancy (not my own I stole it from a Lost blog). The lover got Sun pregant off the island, but Juliet is lying to both her and Ben. She wants to be able to save Sun with her drugs and prove to Ben that she's been successful in her job in an attempt to get her off the island.

MikeWaters · 04-27-2007, 04:09 PM

Farrah heard that the parachute girl actually said "I am not alone" in Portugese, while the pirate guy made up some lie about what she said.

jay santos · 04-27-2007, 04:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Farrah heard that the parachute girl actually said "I am not alone" in Portugese, while the pirate guy made up some lie about what she said.

Yes I read that on the Lost blogs too.

Mormon Red Death · 04-28-2007, 02:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Farrah heard that the parachute girl actually said "I am not alone" in Portugese, while the pirate guy made up some lie about what she said.

Maybe I wasnt paying attention but I didn't hear portuguese....

04-27-2007, 03:52 PM	#1
jay santos Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 6,177	Lost--the Korean episode this week I've mentioned this before but I love how authentic Lost makes the Korean language and culture. Very impressive attention to detail. They do an excellent job translating because usually translations on TV seem to be written in English first, and then translated directly and awkwardly into the native language. Not so with Lost. It almost seems to be written in Korean by native Korean first with attention to the culture and native language, and then translated back to English. Example: "yobo" translated Mr. Kwon and Mrs. Kwon. Jin calls Sun and calls her yobo. And they translate it "Mrs. Kwon", and she says in English it feels so strange to be caled Mrs. Kwon. Later she calls him "yobo" and they translate it Mr. Kwon. At first I thought, how stupid they're not translating the Korean right at all. But actually they were translating the intent. "Yobo" means honey or dear and is usually always used between husband and wife. So the intent and feeling is the same as calling each other Mr. Kwon and Mrs. Kwon and that was the best way to translate the intent into English. Example 2: When Jin's mother threatened Sun, Sun said in Korean "what did you say?". The meaning wasn't in the actual words but in the way she expressed it and the body language and inflection. In English it was translated "How rude!" which would infer the same meaning. They also do an excellent job in using honorific/respectful/casual/intimate/rude verb endings (as you probably know Japanese and Korean have a wide variety of endings that express specific meaning) that give more meaning to some of the scenes in Korean than you catch in English. Theory on Sun's pregnancy (not my own I stole it from a Lost blog). The lover got Sun pregant off the island, but Juliet is lying to both her and Ben. She wants to be able to save Sun with her drugs and prove to Ben that she's been successful in her job in an attempt to get her off the island.

04-27-2007, 04:09 PM	#2
MikeWaters Demiurge Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 36,365	Farrah heard that the parachute girl actually said "I am not alone" in Portugese, while the pirate guy made up some lie about what she said.