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Korean as a Concatenative, Stack-Oriented Language (2017)

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Re: Korean as a Concatenative, Stack-Oriented Language (2017)

#21

Post by lalopalota »

neom wrote: post #20
schwartzworld wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All these can be said as succinctly in English though. "one beer please" is enough to place an order, and the rest is just decorative. Does Korean not have more complex / ceremonial speech patterns?

How would would you say "where is the toilet?" more succinctly with the context up front in English? If someone came up to me in English and said "toilet where?" I'd presume they're either rude or English isn't their first language. There are formal and informal ways to say thing in Korean, for every day stuff it's often just a matter of changing the suffix, for some stuff it's a different word, for example 감사합니다 Kam…

> How would would you say "where is the toilet?" more succinctly with the context up front in English?

"Restroom?"

Re: Korean as a Concatenative, Stack-Oriented Language (2017)

#22

Post by neom »

lalopalota wrote: post #21
neom wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would would you say "where is the toilet?" more succinctly with the context up front in English? If someone came up to me in English and said "toilet where?" I'd presume they're either rude or English isn't their first language. There are formal and informal ways to say thing in Korean, for every day stuff it's often just a matter of changing the suffix, for some stuff it's a different word, for example 감사합니다 Kam…

> How would would you say "where is the toilet?" more succinctly with the context up front in English? "Restroom?"

We're talking(the article) about forming sentences, not just saying words at people.

Re: Korean as a Concatenative, Stack-Oriented Language (2017)

#23

Post by MichaelZuo »

neom wrote: post #22
lalopalota wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would would you say "where is the toilet?" more succinctly with the context up front in English? "Restroom?"

We're talking(the article) about forming sentences, not just saying words at people.

"Restroom?" is a valid english sentence.

Re: Korean as a Concatenative, Stack-Oriented Language (2017)

#24

Post by yongjik »

schwartzworld wrote: post #12
neom wrote: post #4

Having spent the last 5 years learning Korean, I've grown to find it an incredibly efficient language. 맥주 한 잔 주세요 Beer one please 화장실은 어디에요? Toilet where? 와이파이 있어요? wifi is here? You can process and even start answering someone before they've finished their sentence. By contrast in English, I'd say "Could I have another beer please?" - tell me what you need up front!

All these can be said as succinctly in English though. "one beer please" is enough to place an order, and the rest is just decorative. Does Korean not have more complex / ceremonial speech patterns?

Korean has a crapload of complex speech patterns (degree of politeness - that's sheer madness) but the nice(?) thing about it is that it all comes at the end. So you can start your sentence without even deciding if it's a statement or a question.

E.g.,

오늘 그 식당 열어요 Today that restaurant is open.

오늘 그 식당 열어요? Is that restaurant open today?

오늘 그 식당 열 것 같아요. I guess that restaurant is open today.

오늘 그 식당 열 것 같다고 들었어요. I heard [someone] saying that restaurant is probably open today.

오늘 그 식당 열 것 같다고 들으셨다면서요? I heard that you heard that the restaurant is probably open today, is that true?

오늘 그 식당 열 것 같다고 말한 분이 누군지 찾아서 좀 따져야겠어! I'm going to find whoever told me that the restaurant would open today, and set the record straight!

오늘 그 식당 열 것 같을 리가 없잖아요! There's no way the restaurant is even open today!

In fact, learning English as a native Korean speaker, one of the greatest difficulty was asking questions - you can't just start your sentence and make it a question later, you have to mentally pause, construct your question in your head, and then invert the first word! It took me years.

Re: Korean as a Concatenative, Stack-Oriented Language (2017)

#25

Post by Google234 »

neom wrote: post #22
lalopalota wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would would you say "where is the toilet?" more succinctly with the context up front in English? "Restroom?"

We're talking(the article) about forming sentences, not just saying words at people.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_rising_terminal you can raise the pitch to indicate that you are asking a question

Re: Korean as a Concatenative, Stack-Oriented Language (2017)

#26

Post by MichaelZuo »

yongjik wrote: post #24
schwartzworld wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All these can be said as succinctly in English though. "one beer please" is enough to place an order, and the rest is just decorative. Does Korean not have more complex / ceremonial speech patterns?

Korean has a crapload of complex speech patterns (degree of politeness - that's sheer madness) but the nice(?) thing about it is that it all comes at the end. So you can start your sentence without even deciding if it's a statement or a question. E.g., 오늘 그 식당 열어요 Today that restaurant is open. 오늘 그 식당 열어요? Is that restaurant open today? 오늘 그 식당 열 것 같아요. I guess that restaurant is open today. 오늘 그 식당 열 것 같다고 들었어요. I…

Is there the Korean equivalent of very formal language, such as:

"Dear honoured sir, may I humbly beg for your indulgence in a meagre glass of beer?"

Re: Korean as a Concatenative, Stack-Oriented Language (2017)

#27

Post by famouswaffles »

schwartzworld wrote: post #12
neom wrote: post #4

Having spent the last 5 years learning Korean, I've grown to find it an incredibly efficient language. 맥주 한 잔 주세요 Beer one please 화장실은 어디에요? Toilet where? 와이파이 있어요? wifi is here? You can process and even start answering someone before they've finished their sentence. By contrast in English, I'd say "Could I have another beer please?" - tell me what you need up front!

All these can be said as succinctly in English though. "one beer please" is enough to place an order, and the rest is just decorative. Does Korean not have more complex / ceremonial speech patterns?

Yeah....It gets a lot more sparse

Strictly speaking 친구 있어요 ? means Friend Have ?

And you would say exactly that for any of these English equivalents

"Do they have friends ?"

"Do you have a friend ?"

"Do you have friends ?"

"Does he have a friend ?"

And so on.

Plurality as a special marker doesn't really exist. Possessive and Article Determiners don't really exist either. Articles don't exist at all. Possessive markers are few and only used when surrounding context might not be enough to convey the needed information.

You might ask, well how would you know which of those equivalents 친구 있어요 means ?

It's context. Korean is highly context dependent. There is no way to tell before reading or hearing the surrounding context.

>Does Korean not have more complex / ceremonial speech patterns?

Oh boy. Let's just say formality and politeness is baked into the language.

Words and sentence/phrase suffixes change depending on your age and relationship with who you're taking to.

친구 있어요 (meaning I have a friend/They have friends etc without the question mark) becomes 친구 있어 speaking to a close friend and 친구 입니다 speaking to someone much older than you (or in a formal setting with say your boss)

There are also on how to address people you refer to in a sentence separate from rules on how you address people you speaking to.

Re: Korean as a Concatenative, Stack-Oriented Language (2017)

#28

Post by yongjik »

schwartzworld wrote: post #12
neom wrote: post #4

Having spent the last 5 years learning Korean, I've grown to find it an incredibly efficient language. 맥주 한 잔 주세요 Beer one please 화장실은 어디에요? Toilet where? 와이파이 있어요? wifi is here? You can process and even start answering someone before they've finished their sentence. By contrast in English, I'd say "Could I have another beer please?" - tell me what you need up front!

All these can be said as succinctly in English though. "one beer please" is enough to place an order, and the rest is just decorative. Does Korean not have more complex / ceremonial speech patterns?

Oh, and there's one really succinct way of expression that's not found in English:

One can say something like 난 라면 - literally "I am ramen" (or something like that - it's a bit fuzzy because the "be" verb is omitted). It would be a ridiculous sentence by itself, but if your friend just asked "I'll have noodles, how about you?" then it's a perfectly fine response.

Similarly you could even say 난 프랑스 ("I am France") if the question was "I visited New York this summer, it was really nice, did you go somewhere?"

Re: Korean as a Concatenative, Stack-Oriented Language (2017)

#30

Post by okdood64 »

neom wrote: post #4

Having spent the last 5 years learning Korean, I've grown to find it an incredibly efficient language. 맥주 한 잔 주세요 Beer one please 화장실은 어디에요? Toilet where? 와이파이 있어요? wifi is here? You can process and even start answering someone before they've finished their sentence. By contrast in English, I'd say "Could I have another beer please?" - tell me what you need up front!

English can be pretty much as efficient... It's up to the social context on how much you want to dress it up.
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