Thursday, October 20, 2005

What does 복개공사 mean?

Maybe no one noticed, but I have added a link to the "Tour" section on the "Life and Culture" page of the KBS World Web site. I added the link because some of the articles on the page include audio files.

The articles are interesting, but one problem with "Life and Culture" articles is that they are somewhat difficult to read. Writers of such articles seem to like sentences that are long, complicated, and poetic, which causes a lot of problems for me and probably for other non-native speakers, as well. I can usually follow the written article, but when it comes to audio, I get lost easily. Also, translating such articles can be frustrating. When I can listen to and fully understand such articles, then I will proclaim myself truly fluent in the Korean language. Consider this paragraph from "살아있는 서울사 박물관, 청계천," which seems unnecessarily complicated:
2005년 10월 1일. 청계천의 물길이 열렸다. 지난 47년간 회색 콘크리트 속에 매몰됐던 도심의 하천. 복개 공사 이후, 잊혀지고, 다시는 못 볼 거라 여겨졌던 청계천이 이 날. 푸른 물이 흐르는 열린 물길로 되살아난 것이다.

On October 10, 2005, the Cheonggye-cheon waterway was opened. Buried under gray concrete in the middle of the city for forty-seven years, Cheonggye-cheon was a stream forgotten, and one never expected to be seen again after the work to cover it was finished, but on this day the reopened waterway was revived by the blue water flowing through it.

The audio file linked to the above article is a mislink since it is the file for another article on 목포, which is just as difficult to understand as the above article. Try listening to the file and see if you agree.

복개공사(覆蓋工事) means "work to seal off or cover something." 공사 means "work" and 복개 means "to cover." Actually, both the Chinese characters in 복개 mean "to cover," so the two characters can be switched to 개복 without changing the meaning.

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