Good job the Matrix wasn't set in Korea
Why Koreans ask what year you were born
21–30 of 377 posts
Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born
#22A friend (not Korean) said on his 29th birthday that he's starting his 30th year of life. It was an interesting perspective, because in general we celebrate our nth birthday after completing n years of life.
Funny how your birth day is not a birthday
Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born
#23> The younger person also addresses the older person, usually with a title or another word that fits their relationship, but not their name. Only the older person addresses the younger one with their name. (There can be more nuance.) I love this. I'm an old French guy and still can't quite accept when srangers in an email (or a machine, a system, a web form) adress me using my first name. Being "on a first name basis…
The meaning was never there in the first place, you just were taught that it is there. Adapt.
That's literally all language.
Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born
#24Good job the Matrix wasn't set in Korea
Why?
Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born
#25> The younger person also addresses the older person, usually with a title or another word that fits their relationship, but not their name. Only the older person addresses the younger one with their name. (There can be more nuance.) I love this. I'm an old French guy and still can't quite accept when srangers in an email (or a machine, a system, a web form) adress me using my first name. Being "on a first name basis…
Spaniard here; addressing someone by the last name looks really outdated.
Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born
#26The fact that all Koreans that were born in the same year become of a legal age to drink on the same day, probably creates some cool memories if you drink responsibly
Korea has a binge drinking culture where adolescents frequently peer pressure each other to drink more.
Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born
#27> The younger person also addresses the older person, usually with a title or another word that fits their relationship, but not their name. Only the older person addresses the younger one with their name. (There can be more nuance.) I love this. I'm an old French guy and still can't quite accept when srangers in an email (or a machine, a system, a web form) adress me using my first name. Being "on a first name basis…
Interesting, as a German (which also has a similar system), I am the complete opposite, I find it super irritating when people address me by my last name. And the worst part is having to figure out how to address others, especially people you've known for a while but aren't really close to, e.g. say long-time neighbors I rarely meet. Luckily, in the IT industry, it's common to just use first names with everybody.
It's quite common, even the norm these days, to address people by their first names in professional settings, among colleagues.
The thing is that this is also becoming/has become the norm when you get correspondance from strangers when the standard etiquette is to use title + surname, as in all European countries, I suppose.
Now, I think when people address you by your surname only, either orally or in writing, it is irritating.
Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born
#28As far as I can tell, everything in this article applies to Japan as well.
That used to be true about Japan using the "1 the day you're born" system, but now it's mostly only referenced to joke about kids trying to claim they're older than they really are.
Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born
#29As far as I can tell, everything in this article applies to Japan as well.
It does not. Japan a hundred years ago maybe. Some of my Japanese colleagues were surprised when I mentioned this style of age counting in an old novel I was reading.
You're right and I think I got my misinformation from reading older novels too. Apparently, the law changed in 1902 and it broadly phased out in the 50s.