Comments on J-List side blog: Lightning strikes, space-faring Japanese astronaut...

Yes, but then in Japanese, you just have to get us...

2005-08-04T23:18:00.000+09:00

Yes, but then in Japanese, you just have to get used to strange sounds good. Like "weekend" being oo-EEE-koo-EN-doh.

hahaha yes, transliteration is very difficult for ...

2005-08-04T20:57:00.000+09:00

hahaha yes, transliteration is very difficult for Korean too. Ever since learning some Japanese, I transliterate Korean using the way it should sound. For example, pear is usually transliterated as 'bae', but now I see that as 'bah eh' so I write it as 'beh' now.

Ah, I should have seen it, gook = koku in Japanese...

2005-08-04T18:44:00.000+09:00

Ah, I should have seen it, gook = koku in Japanese (gai-koku-jin, outside + country + person). Do you have problems with transliteration from hangul to English, as with Japanese? There are two main ways to transliterate Japanese to roman, the way it generally sounds (e.g. "watashi") and the way some idiot schollar at the Ministry of Education thinks it should be ("watasi," without the 'h'). As with computer platforms, the inferior system is the one that is usually standardized on.

The proper term for 'foreigner' in Korean is actua...

2005-08-03T19:02:00.000+09:00

The proper term for 'foreigner' in Korean is actually 'weh gook in'. The 'in' comes from 'in gahn', which also means "person", but I believe "human" is the true meaning. 'sah lram' also means "person", and it's used more often for describing (for example, 'joh eum sah lram', which means "good person").

And 'gook' is just a marker for 'country'.

My english is limited, so I hope you understood what I wrote.

Ah, "gul" is "go" in Japanese, that's logical. It'...

2005-08-03T11:20:00.000+09:00

Ah, "gul" is "go" in Japanese, that's logical. It'd be cool to have a comparison of the history of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese through the ages.

ちょっと違うと思う。

I don't recall which (it has bee...

2005-08-03T04:38:00.000+09:00

ちょっと違うと思う。

I don't recall which (it has been 5 years since I was last in Korea), but either the "gook" or the "sa ram" would be equivalent to Japanese "jin".

I *think* that "gook" is kind of like a marker for people from countries, and the "sa ram" is the "jin". For example, a Korean person is "han gook" where the language is "han gul". Sorry I can't be definitive.

Ah, thanks. Heh, I always try to memorize words in...

2005-08-02T10:23:00.000+09:00

Ah, thanks. Heh, I always try to memorize words in kanji, and thus it's hard for me to memorize Korean words since I don't read hangul yet (although I know it's easy to learn). Does way good sa ram correspond to "gaikokujin" (e.g. foreign country person, the polite way to say foreigner)?

'Foreigner' in Korean is "way gook" or the full ve...

2005-08-02T01:07:00.000+09:00

'Foreigner' in Korean is "way gook" or the full version is "way gook sa ram".

American is "me gook"

Korean is "han gook"