'Using “you” in Korean is quite interesting since the direct translation 너 / neo is often too rude.'
That makes me wonder how the preferred third person pronoun movement works in Korea...
Why Koreans ask what year you were born
141–150 of 377 posts
Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born
#142What would be the polite way to decline to answer the question? Is that even possible?
Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's definitely a birthday, hence the name. It's the day you turn 0.
It's a definition that could add 1 to everyone's birthday celebrations. A baby born on the 15th of June 2024 could be celebrating its 2nd birth day in a few days. Or well the family would. They'd celebrate the birth, and why not count that as a "birthday celebration".. Ha. Curiously I guess most of us celebrate the number of years completed.
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Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's definitely a birthday, hence the name. It's the day you turn 0.
It's a definition that could add 1 to everyone's birthday celebrations. A baby born on the 15th of June 2024 could be celebrating its 2nd birth day in a few days. Or well the family would. They'd celebrate the birth, and why not count that as a "birthday celebration".. Ha. Curiously I guess most of us celebrate the number of years completed.
They would be celebrating their first anniversary.
Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born
#145I've been told the one reason why Japanese is so hard to learn is because there is an underlying etiquette and social hierarchy built into the language and it is not simply being able to understand and speak the words.
Native speakers tolerate errors when it's obvious someone is non-native, but become offended when they speak it perfectly, but screw up the social heirarchy, so it's extremely hard to progress beyond a certain point.
Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born
#146The 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
Drinking responsibly is uncool by definition when you are that age.
Yeah yeah I agree, it’s sometimes fun to go crazy in that age. I meant drinking responsibly in the broadest way possible
Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. I find addressing people by surname uniquely stupid. Like are you calling the person or the historical clan? It perhaps made sense for medieval lords to address their underlings as if they were interchangeable, in our modern context that has largely done away with royalty, using surnames makes no sense. It becomes even more interesting when traditionally cultures (like mine) don't use surnames, but modern IT sys…
I think American high school kids often refer to and address one another by surname. It was the case when at my son's high school, as I recall at my own, and I think at my wife's. It might have been the case at my father's, and perhaps my wife's parents--I'd have to look at the yearbooks.
This was absolutely not the norm I experienced in the 2000s.
Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you mean snail mail address, no it wouldn't. It's common to share these between people who have the same last (or sometimes first) names. Things get really fun when it's. both, e.g. a man marrying somebody who has the same first name as their sister. This actually happened in my (distant) family. If you mean an email (or the part before the @), also no. People sometimes sign up from addresses like contact@example.…
> If you mean an email (or the part before the @), also no. People sometimes sign up from addresses like contact@example.com, and "dear contact" would be super confusing. I was going for the principle that we're not trying to mimic human emotions when it's a mail to remind you to accept the latest TOS. So, no "Dear", no trying to come up with something socially acceptable, just plain "miki123211@hn.xx, please review…
This is already plenty common with names.
I tend to use fuck/off as name/surname for completely throwaway accounts, and "dear mr. Fuck" is something I received once.
Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born
#149> 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…
we've all seen https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-..., yeah?
Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. I find addressing people by surname uniquely stupid. Like are you calling the person or the historical clan? It perhaps made sense for medieval lords to address their underlings as if they were interchangeable, in our modern context that has largely done away with royalty, using surnames makes no sense. It becomes even more interesting when traditionally cultures (like mine) don't use surnames, but modern IT sys…
I think American high school kids often refer to and address one another by surname. It was the case when at my son's high school, as I recall at my own, and I think at my wife's. It might have been the case at my father's, and perhaps my wife's parents--I'd have to look at the yearbooks.
My experience is this mostly between men and generally not as common as it used to be.
My dad is called by his surname by some of his high school pals and call some of them by surname when he's around them (but not in reference to them if he's talking to me). Thinking back to my high school days in the late 00's I can only remember athletes being called by their last name. Perhaps because of football or sports that you just have your last name on your jersey. It would be an interesting thing to understand more.
I could be regional too. I'm from the US in the midwest.