Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lost in translation: The linguistic challenges facing N. Korean defectors (2025)

dailynk.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 47 posts

Re: Lost in translation: The linguistic challenges facing N. Korean defectors (2025)

#11

Post by Anon84 »

anthk wrote: post #6

Eh, Spanish has the same issues across the pond and everyone adapts quickly. Móvil/Celular -cell phone- Camarero/Mesero -waiter- Tiroteo/Balacera -shooting- Nevera/Heladera -freezer- Cacahuete/Maní -peanut- Coche/Carro -car- (In Iberian Spanish carro it's a old carriage) Ordenador/Computadora (Computador was used in Ib. Spa. long ago maybe in 1960's and 1970's). And -computación (computing) it's used on formal, acade…

A few years back I analyzed how (informal, social media) written Spanish differs from place to place and (re-)discovered that the vireynados were a thing a while back :)

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Re: Lost in translation: The linguistic challenges facing N. Korean defectors (2025)

#12

Post by Anon84 »

kibwen wrote: post #10
anthk wrote: post #6

Eh, Spanish has the same issues across the pond and everyone adapts quickly. Móvil/Celular -cell phone- Camarero/Mesero -waiter- Tiroteo/Balacera -shooting- Nevera/Heladera -freezer- Cacahuete/Maní -peanut- Coche/Carro -car- (In Iberian Spanish carro it's a old carriage) Ordenador/Computadora (Computador was used in Ib. Spa. long ago maybe in 1960's and 1970's). And -computación (computing) it's used on formal, acade…

Sure, US vs. UK English has this as well, in things like "fanny", "boot", "chip", etc. But a key difference here is that NK and SK are separated by a fence, not by 2,000 miles of ocean.

British English is quickly becoming Americanized… (at least according to my results a few years back https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.00781v1)

Re: Lost in translation: The linguistic challenges facing N. Korean defectors (2025)

#13

Post by Anon84 »

pezezin wrote: post #9
anthk wrote: post #6

Eh, Spanish has the same issues across the pond and everyone adapts quickly. Móvil/Celular -cell phone- Camarero/Mesero -waiter- Tiroteo/Balacera -shooting- Nevera/Heladera -freezer- Cacahuete/Maní -peanut- Coche/Carro -car- (In Iberian Spanish carro it's a old carriage) Ordenador/Computadora (Computador was used in Ib. Spa. long ago maybe in 1960's and 1970's). And -computación (computing) it's used on formal, acade…

You forgot the best one: "Coger" in Spain means "to grab", in LATAM it means "to have sex" xD

Similarly, I’ve been told that “te quiero mucho” can mean very different things depending on where you are

Re: Lost in translation: The linguistic challenges facing N. Korean defectors (2025)

#14

Post by Anon84 »

ninalanyon wrote: post #3

It doesn't make a convincing case to me. The differences cited seem no more, perhaps less than the differences between Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish which are, at least officially, distinct languages not dialects but are nonetheless largely mutually intelligible for many native speakers. And I'll bet that "Modern slang expressions — enthusiastically adopted by younger generations" is also difficult for elderly South…

As a wise man once said, the difference between a dialect and a language is that a language has an army and an navy

Re: Lost in translation: The linguistic challenges facing N. Korean defectors (2025)

#15

Post by simonask »

jdw64 wrote: post #5

Reading this article, I found myself agreeing with more of it than I expected, even as a Korean-language speaker. There are words that are used differently in North Korea and South Korea, but even within South Korean Korean, the sentence endings, vocabulary, and phrasing you should use can change a lot depending on the situation. The basic structure may be similar, but small differences matter. Vocabulary changes dep…

Machine translations are so easy to spot for exactly the same reasons you point out.

Machine English is generally much more off-putting than English with a few mistakes, so I don’t think you need to be so nervous.

Re: Lost in translation: The linguistic challenges facing N. Korean defectors (2025)

#16

Post by simonask »

ninalanyon wrote: post #3

It doesn't make a convincing case to me. The differences cited seem no more, perhaps less than the differences between Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish which are, at least officially, distinct languages not dialects but are nonetheless largely mutually intelligible for many native speakers. And I'll bet that "Modern slang expressions — enthusiastically adopted by younger generations" is also difficult for elderly South…

Yeah, but I will point out that Sweden, Norway, and Denmark are also countries with incredibly similar political cultures, economic systems, societal norms, cultural values, and so on. I wouldn’t be surprised if the culture shock between DPRK and SK is much bigger after 70 years of tyranny and oppression.

Re: Lost in translation: The linguistic challenges facing N. Korean defectors (2025)

#17

Post by dfxm12 »

anthk wrote: post #6

Eh, Spanish has the same issues across the pond and everyone adapts quickly. Móvil/Celular -cell phone- Camarero/Mesero -waiter- Tiroteo/Balacera -shooting- Nevera/Heladera -freezer- Cacahuete/Maní -peanut- Coche/Carro -car- (In Iberian Spanish carro it's a old carriage) Ordenador/Computadora (Computador was used in Ib. Spa. long ago maybe in 1960's and 1970's). And -computación (computing) it's used on formal, acade…

There is lots of exposure to these differences: songs, books, TV, Internet posts, etc. that isn't necessarily there for North Korean.

Re: Lost in translation: The linguistic challenges facing N. Korean defectors (2025)

#18

Post by satvikpendem »

jdw64 wrote: post #5

Reading this article, I found myself agreeing with more of it than I expected, even as a Korean-language speaker. There are words that are used differently in North Korea and South Korea, but even within South Korean Korean, the sentence endings, vocabulary, and phrasing you should use can change a lot depending on the situation. The basic structure may be similar, but small differences matter. Vocabulary changes dep…

Your comments are great and I trust it more precisely because you didn't use AI ,and trust me, we can tell when one uses AI, as the sentence and grammar structures are way different.

Re: Lost in translation: The linguistic challenges facing N. Korean defectors (2025)

#19

Post by [deleted] »

ninalanyon wrote: post #3

It doesn't make a convincing case to me. The differences cited seem no more, perhaps less than the differences between Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish which are, at least officially, distinct languages not dialects but are nonetheless largely mutually intelligible for many native speakers. And I'll bet that "Modern slang expressions — enthusiastically adopted by younger generations" is also difficult for elderly South…

[deleted]

Re: Lost in translation: The linguistic challenges facing N. Korean defectors (2025)

#20

Post by shlewis »

Imo as a Korean speaker, the thing about North Korean Korean is that it sounds much more aggressive, from the words to the general tone. They’re also usually much more direct, and in a lot of North Korean defector stories I’ve read, that has been a common pain point for them.
Post reply on HN