Yeah, in Korea, if you are a boy and have an older sister, you have to call her “nuna”. Your older brother “hyeong”. If you are a girl, your older sister is “onni” and your older brother is “oppa” (which also carries the unfortunate sexual connotation like calling someone “daddy” in English.) Thankfully at least all younger siblings are "dongsaeng"s. No wonder shit gets translated like this.
Ahh yeah, you also have to use these terms with your friends that are older and younger than you. If any Korean tells you someone is their sister or brother and it seems unlikely, it’s because they mean that they are their older or younger friends, but the only person that Koreans actually call “friend” (chingu) are people the same age as them.
I’ve always struggled explaining this to people. I was taken aback for a long time in that one of the first questions upon meeting someone new was how old I was. I didn’t understand that it’s embedded within the language to establish this.
I read an interesting linguistics essay once that asserted nobody is fluent in Korean because the vocabulary changes as you age. I don’t agree with the thesis, but found it intriguing nonetheless.
(Also, I was there in the nineties. I’ve heard that agashi has since become a word one doesn’t want to use. When and how did that happen?)
Yeah, in Korea, if you are a boy and have an older sister, you have to call her “nuna”. Your older brother “hyeong”. If you are a girl, your older sister is “onni” and your older brother is “oppa” (which also carries the unfortunate sexual connotation like calling someone “daddy” in English.) Thankfully at least all younger siblings are "dongsaeng"s. No wonder shit gets translated like this.
Ahh yeah, you also have to use these terms with your friends that are older and younger than you. If any Korean tells you someone is their sister or brother and it seems unlikely, it’s because they mean that they are their older or younger friends, but the only person that Koreans actually call “friend” (chingu) are people the same age as them.
I’ve always struggled explaining this to people. I was taken aback for a long time in that one of the first questions upon meeting someone new was how old I was. I didn’t understand that it’s embedded within the language to establish this.
I read an interesting linguistics essay once that asserted nobody is fluent in Korean because the vocabulary changes as you age. I don’t agree with the thesis, but found it intriguing nonetheless.
(Also, I was there in the nineties. I’ve heard that agashi has since become a word one doesn’t want to use. When and how did that happen?)
Hahaha! “Agashi” is fine if you’re not being creepy about it.