Why Korean Translations of English Words Suck Sometimes

I feel almost nitpicky bringing this up.

It really bothered me, as a child, when my parents would say an English word but tacked on the end “eu” or “ee.”

For example, instead of “book,” it was “book-eu.” I don’t know about you, but I think adding the “eu” makes it more difficult to say.

For the longest time, I thought this was a weird habit unique to my parents. Or I thought it was a product of just bad translations. I figured they had native Korean speakers who taught them English. So, of course, the translations wouldn’t be very good.

Why isn’t it possible to just end the word??

Although there may indeed be bad translations, that is not the reason for adding the vowel sound to the end of a word.

I’m not an English-Korean tutor or Korean-English tutor. So I won’t go into the fine details of the Korean language out of fear of giving you the wrong information. But I can tell you what I know from personal experience and what I’ve been taught.

A vowel sound must come after certain consonants in the Korean language. The “k,” “s,” “j,” “ch,” “t,” and “h” consonant sounds must be followed by a vowel. In Hangeul, that’s “ㅋ,” “ㅅ,” “ㅈ,” “ㅊ,” “ㅌ,” and “ㅎ,” respectively.

I briefly touched on the structure of Hangeul, the Korean alphabet, in a previous post. Basically, Korean is written using consonants and vowels that make a character, sort-of. You’ve likely seen this with Chinese characters. For some words, like our “book” example, it would be against the Korean rules of grammar to end the “character” with the “k” sound.

“Do You Understand the Words That Are Coming Out of My Mouth?”*

Even if you’re fine with breaking the rules (I certainly am), it just wouldn’t look right to Koreans. And it wouldn’t feel natural coming out of their mouths. And remember, Hangeul was created by mimicking the formation of the mouth and tongue when making the sound. It’s supposed to feel very natural to make the sound of the letter.

To ask a Korean to end a word in one of those consonant sounds would be going against the very nature of their native language.

I know that when I’m learning a new language, I write out the foreign word phonetically using the English alphabet. Who doesn’t do this when learning a new language?? But there’s been plenty of times where I screwed up the word because there simply was no letter, or combination of letters, that would make the sound. It’s the exact same situation.

So yes, Korean translations of English words suck sometimes. But, in my humble opinion, there’s a pretty good reason for it.

So if you find yourself talking with Koreans, whether it’s your own parents or you’re traveling to Korea, don’t be like me. Curb your annoyance at the butchering of the English language because it’s not on purpose. It’s actually the application of Hangeul to English words. A compromise, if you will. The least we can do is meet them halfway.

Have you experienced the “eu” or “ee” addition too? Do tell in the comments!

*That’s from “Rush Hour” for those of you who have been living under a rock. 😉