Where is Korea????

[JockZon]

Yeah well you said "look it up at youtube" but since the north koreans shouldn't be able to then it sounds like a joke to me but I don't know. Maybe you were serious because some actually got to south korea and posted on youtube. Haha I don't know.

[steved]

There is probably a fair amount of North Koreans going south and vice versa. As I recall, the '간첩 주의' (watch for spies) signs are fairly ubiquitous in Korea. In order for any spy effort to be effective I would think that a clear understanding of the language and its various differences would be vital for both sides.

[hyunwoo]

Joakim, actually there are some that you can check out, although they are mainly documentaries.

I recommend watching this one if you want to know more about North Korea.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FVA4kgVGmX0

[hyunwoo]

The only North Korean people that I met were the waitresses in a North Korean food restaurant that I went to in Shanghai, China. The food was not very different, but it was the first time I ever heard anyone speaking in the North Korean accent, so it was an awesome experience. I didn't have a problem understanding the waitresses, but the waitresses, on the other hand, seemed to have a pause every now and then trying hard to understand what I was saying.

[steved]

Are the Koreans in China actually from North Korea? I had heard that there were large numbers of Koreans in China from before the Korean War/political division. I guess I need to brush up on my history.

[hyunwoo]

Of course there are a lot of people who came over to China before the division of the two Koreas, and but as far as I know, there are also quite a number of people who successfully defect and settle down in China. And of course children of some really powerful families in North Korea even go to univerisity in China to get better education.

[Keith]

There's actually a fair number of North Koreans in Japan as well.

[steved]

I find it interesting that Japan hosts the NOrth Korean official news website: http://www.kcna.co.jp.

[Jenniina]

Oh my! There reads "Suomi Finland" ! My home country!
It's a long distance between Finland and Korea.
Luckily it's soon possible to fly straight to Korea from Finland

[luckynomad]

Well, using "니" in place of "너" is fairly common throughout Korea, but the extend to which it is used varies from region to region.

For example,

1. Saying "니가" instead of "너가" is common in all of Korea.
(you'll even be corrected if you keep saying "너가" because it sounds very strange,
so 너가 should either be 네가 or 니가, but then '네가' sounds like '내가',
so virtually everyone ends up saying '니가' instead of '너가'

But,

2. '너는' is always '너는' in standard colloqial Korean,
but in the southern regions they say "니는" ^_^

3. 너한테('to you') becoming 니한테 is also only commonplace in the southern regions.




Can you guess what this means in the Gyeongsangnamdo dialect?

"니 머꼬?"


^_^

Hey, I know what that means. My friend from Busan says it all the time. It roughly means, "What the Fu*k man?!!!" Often used when another driver does something that pisses you off.

[Keith]

Hey! We got a special 3-part series on the 경상도 사투리 (Gyeongsangdo Dialect) coming up very soon! And everyone loves dialects... don't they?!