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Why Koreans ask what year you were born

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Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#191

Post by ilc »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #106
makeitdouble wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

When I was in university, a friend of mine used to address me by my unix username.

Only one?

You got off light. I had a good number of people call me by my username at my undergrad.

When I went to grad school, they let us select user ids. My user name matched my first name, most elegant solution to that problem yet ;)

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#192

Post by somanyphotons »

youngNed wrote: post #163
mensetmanusman wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that I know that every culture approaches this differently, it takes zero effort to not be annoyed when someone does something different than what I expect.

^^^ what this cunt said

found the australian

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#193

Post by inerte »

dkga wrote: post #173

I find it surprising actually how much these seniority rules are well-defined in many cultures, but in Brazil there is strong variation - even in the same geography. For example, a colleague who is learning Brazilian Portuguese was under the impression that "você" and "tu" were the equivalent of "vous/tu" or "Sie/du". In reality, they are just different regional ways of saying the informal you. In Brazilian Portugues…

Or the judge who sued his condominium demanding its employees call him "doutor" (Your Honor)...

As a Brazilian raised to not care about this stuff, I would say even rebelled a bit, it was weird to basically be required to do so once I reached adulthood. I remember getting in front of a sheriff and having to address him as "doutor". I remember talking to an intern in law firms and he corrected me when I addressed him by name saying, "No, it's DOUTOR Adriano".

Gee, let's not even mention the medical field... veterinarians and nutritionists want to be called "doutor"...

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#194

Post by thaumasiotes »

gyomu wrote: post #179
daft_pink wrote: post #145

I'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…

Heh that’s overstated. As a non Asian foreigner*, you get a lot of leeway for making mistakes when speaking Japanese, as it is somehow ingrained in the subconscious here that Japanese is very special and very complicated and a foreigner trying to speak it is already doing something near impossible. If your Japanese is near flawless except for the honorific register that would strike people as weird, but then what did…

My grandmother spent a lot of time in Japan, and she reported that everyone was very accommodating initially, but that over time the expectation developed that after being there for so long she should have learned the correct way to behave.

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#195

Post by dmoy »

EarlKing wrote: post #168
cafard wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Addressing each other by surname is something that occurs principally in the context of sports, but outside of that you'd just address someone by given name. That was the case as regards children addressing each other or teachers addressing students. Students addressing teachers, of course, would address them by Mr/Mrs/Ms. . There are some oddball cases where teachers insist their students address them by given name,…

It is also used when there's name collision

If there's five people named John in the same class in school or the same team at work, it is not uncommon for all John to go by last name.

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#197

Post by agubelu »

davidw wrote: post #155
tauchunfall wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I find it super irritating when people address me by my last name. Me too. There are still German companies where coworkers address others with Herr or Frau followed by their last name. I find it also interesting how people that learn German understand the difference between the "you" in formal ("sie") and informal ("du") version, but often don't understand in which context du use them. In most cases you can use the…

As a born and raised English speaker and fluent Italian speaker, I still don't love the "tu / lei". It's very... binary as to what gets used. Sometimes that's easy, but the marginal cases can be difficult to figure out. I think the tone and posture when addressing someone convey enough formality. Like if I met Barack Obama, I would be very formal and respectful in my bearing and language, but of course still use 'you…

In the weird edge cases you can simply err on the side of politeness and use the formal version. Worst case scenario they'll simply tell you to drop it and use tu instead.

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#198

Post by 1shooner »

canjobear wrote: post #147
cafard wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I experienced this at an boy's prep high school in the late 90s. It really was alienating to have friends I'd known since kindergarten start to refer to me by my last name out of sheer conformity.

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#199

Post by beAbU »

rayiner wrote: post #135
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 spent almost 10 years trying to avoid calling my mother and father in law by their first names. In my home country's language there are words for "mother in law" and "father in law" you can use in a second person context, but English doesn't have any. My wife has the opposite problem. She's gotten stuck calling my parents "Mr. XYZ" and "Mrs. XYZ."

My inlaws are addressed "mom" and "dad" - is that weird?

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#200

Post by tiagod »

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.

In Portugal it's very associated with military service. I don't think I've ever been addressed by my last name here.
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