positive affirmation to a negative question
***warning***this post is not fit for the linguistically disinterested***
interesting difference between korean and english language.
think to yourself:
1. you are looking for your chingu (friend) niki, and you suspect she is upstairs.
2. you ask someone on the stairs, "niki isn't upstairs, is she?"
3. the answer is, "yes."
what do you think?
a. niki is upstairs.
b. niki is not upstairs.
think to yourself:
1. you are talking to a bunch of little koreans and you suspect that everything you just said went over their heads.
2. you ask them, "you didn't understand me?"
3. the answer is, "yes."
what do you think?
a. they understand you.
b. they don't understand you.
i would assume both (a) answers, that niki is upstairs and that the kids understand. but what they mean is "yes, niki is not upstairs" and "yes, i don't understand you." this has lead to a lot of confusion for me, more than i would expect. i use negative questions like this a lot, especially in class, and every single korean person i talk to responds like this, young and old, despite second language level. it's really cool.
posted by erin elizabeth king @ 3:43 PM
2 comments
2 replies:
So it's true! I read this book that mentioned that the Japanese respond affirmatively to negative questions to confirm the negation. I guess it's the same in Korea.
BTW, the book in question is Les Catilinaires by Amélie Nothomb. Its main character is named Émile, a former teacher of Latin and Greek, and at one point he utters the line "Sometimes I have to remind myself that not everyone shares my linguistic obsessions."
logically it makes sense, sorta. they are agreeing with your assumption that niki is not upstairs or that they do not understand. it would appear they are just ignoring everything after the comma. german's, who end many questions with ",ja?" might have the same problem. however, canadians who end such questions with ",no?" probably would have no problem. hold on.. i need to untwist my brain...
Post a Comment
<< Home