Pibe Dorrah Engrishy

For those that don't know, I used to teach English here in Korea. Once upon a time. Long, long ago. Before I had kids. Back when my breasts were tits, not teats and I actually earned a wage for my labor. Back in the day...

So it is with great understanding of the difficulties Korean students face when learning English that I write this post. I know that students here are dedicated and hard working. I know that they are forced to study far too many hours in a day. I have sweated out the exams with them. I've tried to help them understand an admittedly very difficult language. I get it. I do.

What I do not understand is why Koreans refuse to seek proof readers and editors. I am baffled. I should start a business here and charge just $5 a pop. I'd be rich. If they would come. But they won't. And even if they did, they wouldn't take my corrections kindly.

I once edited an entire study guide written by several Korean professors of English. After the editing, Mike and I along with another teacher were to record some of the dialogue for the accompanying audio. What I kept noticing was that many places I'd made corrections, my corrections weren't made permanent in the text. Mostly, they were small errors that I would make note of and we would record it in proper English.

Then came the shin splints. There was a conversation about a woman having shin splints from running. The text read "shin splinters." I had corrected it. The text was printed without my corrections. I made note of it and we read it correctly as "shin splints." Well, well, well. Miss English PhD stopped the recording to correct us. No, no, says she. She looked up the word "splint" and that is not what she meant. She meant "splinters." Yeah, except there is not such thing. We went 'round and 'round about this. She was absolutely convinced that her PhD in English would trump my ability to actually use the damn language and she would be proved right.

Dumb broad. I wonder how many Koreans out there are walking around complaining about their shin splinters.

And so it goes. Is it any wonder then that I find so much English gone wrong here in Seoul. Gone horribly, horribly wrong?



Now this one is the fault of English just being a screwy language. It is. But really, if someone would have come to me, 5 bucks in hand, and said, "Hey, take a quick look at the wording we're going to have printed on thousands of horses and let me know if it is right," I would have gladly taken their money and told them to drop the damn "g." Simple. And then they wouldn't have these damn stupid signs up all over Seoul making them look like jackass ninnies. But instead, they still have that fiver in the pocket and little to show for it.

Or how 'bout a little Konglish. This is a lingerie store in Itaewon -- the "special tourism district."



Koreans mess up the "r" and "l" sounds. That is because they are one letter, pronounced differently depending on the placement in the word. So mixing these letters up is excusable. But not when you are putting up a sign, for the love of Peet! Give me five stinking dollars and I'll fix it for ya!



This is on the door to our garage. Yeah, I can understand the point here. They want the door shut. But for five bucks they could have saved face and looked a hell of a lot brighter. Just five bucks!

But then there are those signs when they most certainly would have gotten their money's worth. Signs that, well, would have taken a lot more work on my part. But it still would have been worth it to me. Like this one...



These are the instructions to guests on how to get into my building. I cannot make sense of it at all. And I live here! Thankfully, it is written in Korean as well. The Korean makes more sense. A lot more sense. Go figure.

Or this one, which was left on a motorcycle parked next to our van.



The bike was leaking oil and I assume they wanted it gone. But really, what the hell is this supposed to be saying exactly? For five bucks, I could have written down, "Remove your filthy fucking bike. It's puking oil all over the damn place!"

But it is especially frustrating when you just want to know what the hell it is that you are about to eat.



I'll have you know that for five bucks and just one free munchie I'd straighten that sign out. Of course, the free sample would be required to determine whether the toast thingie was really bread or chrysanthemum. And whether or not it was sweet or really Swedish. All in the name of research. And a better English speaking Korea.