Thursday, January 23, 2014

Culture: How to address KOREAN??

In any part of the world, most of people didn't care much about age differences.However in Korea, age is really significant from one to another as its actually showing your rank in Korean society. Even if you were older one year, in Korean hierarchy you gain more RESPECT.

Personally for me, age is just a number but when I'm in Korea I do call some of my Korean friends according to their social rank. Some says it's fine since I'm not Korean but I just address them that way because they know that I write about Korea and have some knowledge about it. ㅋㅋㅋ

I guess these days most of you were familiar with Oppa right? Perhaps this is the effect of Gangnam Style?? ㅋㅋㅋ. When you can call someone oppa (오빠)?? Oppa can be address only by a female to an older guy, even if he's just one year apart. For same sex, male, they call older guy as Hyung (). Oppa and Hyung technically meaning brother, but for boyfriend and girlfriend, normally girlfriend will call their boyfriend as Oppa (guy older than her).

In my case, its different!ㅋㅋㅋ Since my boyfriend is younger than me I cannot address him as Oppa.ㅠㅠ Instead we used another term for each other.ㅋㅋ ^^  Definitely he can't address me as Noona (누나), because I'm his girlfriend! If you ask any girl, will they feel piss off if their love one address her as "sister", the answer is YESㅋㅋㅋ. For a girl who older than him, he will address them as Noona. While for me, I will address my Korean girl friends as Unni (언니). (Older than me)

What about if  same age then??? For same age, normally they just address each other as chingu (친구).While  for someone who younger than them, they will address him or her as dongseng (동생). In university, normally they will call their senior as sunbaenim ( 선배님) and for junior they will address them as hobae(후배). 

Apart from those, Korean will address their friend's parent, co-worker's parent as ommunim (어머님) and abunim (아버님). If you noticed in Korean drama, whenever Korean passing by a very old person, they will address them as haraboji (할아버지) which mean grandfather, halmoni (할머니) grandmother, ajumma  (아줌마) and ajushhi (아저씨) even if they were strangers. This is because they were taught to respect others since they were young. :)

                                  APPELLATION  IN KOREAN
                                                   
                         Oppa =     Brother (address by Female to Male)
                         Hyung =    Brother (address by Male to Male)
                         Noona =   Sister (address by Male to Female)
                         Unni =       Sister (address by Female to Female)
                         Dongseng =   Little brother or little sister
                         Chingu =        Friend
                         Omunim =      Mother
                         Abunim =       Father
                         Haraboji =     Grandfather
                         Halmoni =      Grandmother
                         Ajumma  =     Mid age women 
                         Ajushhi =        Mid age man 
                         Sunbaenim =   Senior
                         Hubae =          Junior 


p/s: Never address a Korean by their name because it will make them feel uncomfortable and it shows       
impolite

Sources: My Friends

Photo Credit: weheartit.com


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

No comments:

Post a Comment