Saturday, April 15, 2006

Why do Koreans like "의" so much?

In a KBS News report, I found a sentence that is so awkward that it is hard to believe it was written by a Korean. See the portion in red:
유럽 6개국 순방을 마치고 오늘 오후 귀국한 반기문 외교통상부 장관은 일본의 동해 우리측 배타적 경제수역에서의 수로탐사 계획에 강력하고 엄중하게 대처하겠다고 밝혔습니다.

Notice that the writer used 의 twice in the same sentence, which is always a good clue that something is wrong. Here is how I would rewrite the phrase:
...일본이 우리의 동해 배타젹 경제수역에서 수로탐사 계획을....

3 comments:

  1. yes Gerry, you are right. It just goes to show you that there are bad writers everywhere. Also, the Koreans, even the media, can't agree on a standard pronounciation for 의. Sometimes it's "ay" as in way and others it's pronounced like "we".

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  2. And here I thought this blog was dead. Speaking of bad writing, I recently came across "...서로가 서로에게 도움이 되고...." This guy needs some lessons from 이수열.

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  3. 일본의 (동해 우리측 배타적 경제수역에서의 수로탐사) 계획에!
    원래 기사가 맞습니다. 고치신 부분은 "일본이 우리의 동해 배타적 경제수역에서 수로탐사한다는 계획에 대해서" 정도가 맞구요.^^

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