Sunday, January 04, 2009
It's So Hard
Korean reporters write the strangest things. This week's selection is taken from a business story that we used last week:
"This year, the Korean won has lost nearly 40 percent of its value, making Koreans very hard to travel abroad."
Yes, they liked traveling abroad before, but now their desire has apparently reached erotic levels.
As an interesting postscript, I informed my wife and her brother of this sentence that night. Since her English is better than his, she proceeded to explain to him in Korean as to why it's incorrect when, as Koreans are prone to doing, say that a situation has made them "very difficult" or worse, "hard."
After that, he asked me: "So, 'hard' has a sexual meaning?"
To which I replied: "Yes. Male."
To which he rejoined: "Oh ... I get it!"
"This year, the Korean won has lost nearly 40 percent of its value, making Koreans very hard to travel abroad."
Yes, they liked traveling abroad before, but now their desire has apparently reached erotic levels.
As an interesting postscript, I informed my wife and her brother of this sentence that night. Since her English is better than his, she proceeded to explain to him in Korean as to why it's incorrect when, as Koreans are prone to doing, say that a situation has made them "very difficult" or worse, "hard."
After that, he asked me: "So, 'hard' has a sexual meaning?"
To which I replied: "Yes. Male."
To which he rejoined: "Oh ... I get it!"
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