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Why Koreans ask what year you were born

bryanhogan.com

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Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#41

Post by andruby »

bambax wrote: post #6

> 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…

And with french you also have Tu vs Vous.

I am almost at the halfway point of my life expectancy, and I do actually prefer people using my first name over my last name.

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#42

Post by GreyMolecules »

This article does not address another layer that makes the Korean age system complicated: the "빠른" system. It refers to people born in January or February who, due to the school cutoff being in March, often enter school a year early and socially identify with those born in the previous calendar year.

For example, if I'm "빠른95", which indicates that I was born in 1995 between January and the end of February, I get to befriend and hang out with the ones born in 1994.

(Please note that Koreans typically make friends within the same narrow age band.)

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#43

Post by whstl »

anthk wrote: post #25
bambax wrote: post #6

> 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Spaniard here; addressing someone by the last name looks really outdated.

Same.

The only situation where I call people by their last name in my language is when it's their nickname. Like there were two "Johns" so we call the second one "Smith".

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#44

Post by Muromec »

netsharc wrote: post #4

A 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.

Seventh hour is everything between 6:01 and 6:59, yes.

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#45

Post by makeitdouble »

bambax wrote: post #6

> 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…

Would addressing you by your mail address work ?

Handling people's name is I think the bane of our field, and leads to many of the awful choices like forcing fields with a first and last name for instance, or requesting people's gender to properly set the Mr and Mrs. As a dev I'm not happy about it, as a user I hate it, I'm not sure the majority of people are happy either with the current state of things.

Accepting that it's a machine sending the mail could simplify all of this quite a bit, provided people are fine by being addressed in an impersonal and inorganic way.

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#46

Post by make3 »

bambax wrote: post #6

> 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…

I feel like tu vs vous is extra annoying in French when you're speaking to someone who's not a stranger. I have no desire to judge if you think you're too famous of eg a professor for me to say tu, your success doesn't create a hierarchy between us, and it's annoying if you think so. I much prefer English for that.

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#47

Post by whstl »

kinleyd wrote: post #35

As a young man many years ago I happened to be in Seoul, in a shoe store. I was casually asking prices in English and noticed the salesman or owner was getting visibly angry with me. So much so that as I went around the corner of the store I clearly saw that he had begun advancing toward me, with every intention of physically attacking me. I put my hand forward to stop him and as I did, I shouted loudly, again in Eng…

In Germany I never had someone go to those lengths, but I've once made someone visible irritated when I used "du" instead of the more formal "Sie".

Of course I didn't notice but a friend just clued me into it right after.

Thing is, in Berlin nobody really cares I guess, but this time I was in the country... oooooops...

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#48

Post by whstl »

bravesoul2 wrote: post #22
netsharc wrote: post #4

A 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

You wouldn't remember the party anyway

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#49

Post by bryanhogan »

GreyMolecules wrote: post #42

This article does not address another layer that makes the Korean age system complicated: the "빠른" system. It refers to people born in January or February who, due to the school cutoff being in March, often enter school a year early and socially identify with those born in the previous calendar year. For example, if I'm "빠른95", which indicates that I was born in 1995 between January and the end of February, I get to…

That's very interesting, thanks for mentioning it! I didn't know about that, hence I didn't include it. But it makes sense, I have sometimes noticed people asking whether the other was born early or late into the year, and change their standing based on that, but didn't know that that could have been because of the "빠른" system.

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#50

Post by fmbb »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #27
benediktwerner wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not all European countries. We phased the title and surname addressing out during the 70s here in Sweden: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du-reformen

Personally I get annoyed only if a sales person addresses me by first name. There is no other setting where I would prefer a stranger to address me using my full name, unless we’re in some context where there are dozens or hundreds of strangers so one can not expect my name is unique.

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