Britcent - [S6E8] Addressing People

Steph  00:02

Hello, Dalya. 

 

Dalya  00:04

Hello, Stephanie, how are you doing today? 

 

Steph  00:06

I'm very well, thank you. The weather has been very warm so I'm enjoying that fact. How about you?

 

Dalya  00:14

Yes, it has, but it's still not sufficiently spring-like enough for me. It's still grey. 

 

Steph  00:21

It's still grey. Yeah, that's true. It's a bit of a mixed bag at the moment. 

*mixed bag 온갖 종류의 집합

 

Dalya  00:27

It is. 

 

Steph  00:27

Some days are better than others. But we're getting closer to the summer season, which is my favourite, so I'm not complaining. So we're back with another episode of our podcast where we've been talking about cultural differences, I guess, yeah, that we've noticed in our lessons when talking to our Korean students.

 

Dalya  00:53

Indeed.

 

Steph  00:55

As usual, we're going to mention three important or useful words throughout the podcast. So, whoever's listening, please see if you can spot them and we will come to those at the end.

*spot 발견하다, 찾다, 알아채다.

 

Dalya  01:11

Yep. And we'll give you the definitions and some example sentences.

 

Steph  01:15

That's right. So what is our topic of the day, Dalya?

 

Dalya  01:19

It is 'addressing people'.

 

Steph  01:21

Mm-hmm. Addressing people, meaning like how you talk to people, so, what sort of name or what sort of title do you give someone when you speak to them, basically. 

 

Dalya  01:33

Yeah. And this comes up a lot in our lessons and on your livestreams and all that type of stuff. 

*come up 언급되다, 생기다, 발생하다.

 

Steph  01:39

It does. 

 

Dalya  01:40

So one of my students said she had a very old lecturer and out of politeness and respect, the way she described her was her "grandma lecturer", and I said, "No, no, no, no, no. Don't say that." That, in England, would be very rude because it sounds as if you're calling someone old, but I know that in Korea it's a sign of respect 'cause someone's older than you.

*out of politeness 예의상

*as if 마치 ~인 것처럼, 흡사 ~와 같이

 

Steph  02:08

So they have a specific word that they use to say 'grandma', I guess. Do they, in Korean? Do you know what they do?

 

Dalya  02:17

I watched the film Minari. And in that film, the little boy always said to his grandma, 'halmeoni'. But I don't know if that's the word people use as a title. I don't know if it's-- it probably isn't. I don't know. People tell me in the comments, please.

 

Steph  02:31

Yes, please do. I've also noticed this a little bit in my livestream, as you mentioned. I don't think it was a Korean listener but I've noticed a few times that some people write in the chat, "Thank you, auntie" or something. So they call me 'auntie'. 

 

Dalya  02:51

Yeah. 

 

Steph  02:52

Which to me sounds really strange, because obviously I'm not their auntie. But I suppose it's a nice way of kind of saying, you know, that they feel - I don't know - they feel like you're close to them, I suppose. I'm not really sure.

 

Dalya  03:04

Yeah. I mean, I don't know much about it, but I do know that that's quite common in African countries and lots of other countries as well, calling someone older than you 'sister', 'brother', 'auntie', 'uncle', blah blah blah.

 

Steph  03:05

Exactly. But we have none of that in English, do we? Not in Britain; we don't really, we don't use these terms to, you know, to address people. I mean, we have words to address people formally.

 

Dalya  03:33

Yeah, but that's for strangers, isn't it? Like 'sir' and 'madam'.

 

Steph  03:36

Yeah, exactly. So if it's someone, for example, 'sir', as you mentioned, like, I suppose you would probably use this word if you were a child at school and you had a male teacher. 

 

Dalya  03:49

Yeah. 

 

Steph  03:50

So you'd put your hand up in the class and say, "Excuse me, sir" or "Sir, can I...?" 

 

Dalya  03:55

Or Mr. Blah Blah. Mr. plus his last name. 

 

Steph  03:57

Mr. plus the last name. Exactly. Yeah, like Mr. Smith or Mr. Brown or something. And if it was a female teacher, normally-- 

 

Dalya  04:07

Well, we'd say Miss. It shouldn't make sense because even if they're married, we'd still call them Miss. Or Mrs. plus surname, which doesn't make much sense.

 

Steph  04:14

Yeah. Yeah, it's 'cause even like if it's an older teacher, even if it's an elderly woman, then they still call her 'Miss' as a teacher. But you shouldn't--

 

Dalya  04:27

I'm sure some feminists out there are angry about that.

 

Steph  04:31

I mean, we don't really-- we don't use 'Miss' in other contexts for older women, though, do we?

 

Dalya  04:38

Well, I mean, there are some people-- I can imagine an older man calling a woman in a restaurant, for example, or, you know, someone who worked in a restaurant, 'Miss'. I'm not sure she'd be happy about it, but I think some people would use it for someone older. But yeah, it is kind of dying, isn't it?

 

Steph  04:54

I think so. I mean, if you were in a shop for example, the sales assistant might say, "Can I help you at all, madam?" 

 

Dalya  05:06

Madam, yeah. 

 

Steph  05:07

I mean, they would use 'miss' if you were very young, I think, but if you're not, you don't look that young, they would probably say, 'madam', so...

 

Dalya  05:15

Or 'young lady'. 

 

Steph  05:17

Yeah, exactly, exactly. 

 

Dalya  05:18

Young lady. Well, one thing that really shocks our students is that when we talk to our managers or bosses, not only do we not have a title, like 'brother' or 'boss' or 'manager', but we don't even tend to use 'Mr.', we just say their first name.

 

Steph  05:36

We do. Yes, it's quite informal, actually, yeah, when talking to your boss.

 

Dalya  05:40

Yeah. I didn't really appreciate how that is actually a little bit mad, isn't it? 

 

Steph  05:44

It is. Yeah, because you would-- I mean, you might still talk formally to your boss or email them in a formal way but you would still call them by their first name. 

 

Dalya  05:49

True. 

 

Steph  05:57

Yeah. So that's quite an interesting one, I think. I think a lot of students have been shocked by that. To hear that we, you know, well, to hear that we don't use their surname, in fact; we tend to use their first name. So you'd say like, "Mark. My boss, Mark" or I don't know, whoever, Miranda, or whoever it is. You wouldn't--

 

Dalya  06:19

And if I'm-- I think in Korea, they don't even use the name at all. So not even your last name that I've seen in the series, they call them daepyonim, which I think translates as 'deputy', but I think it basically means 'boss'. 

 

Steph  06:32

Okay, so it's not even their last name. 

 

Dalya  06:36

If I'm not mistaken, yeah. I think you just say, "Boss..." 

 

Steph  06:40

Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah, I guess, well, this is something for the comments, guys. If you would like to explain to us or tell us a bit more about this, that would be great. Yeah, I mean, we I guess we could say 'boss' to our boss, but it would be like humorous in English, right? Yeah, you go, "Okay, boss." 

 

Dalya  07:01

It's like calling your sister, 'sister'. "Hi, sister." 

 

Steph  07:04

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's more like, we use the word 'boss' to describe who that person is to you. "My boss said, 'Blah, blah, blah'." But you wouldn't address them as that. 

 

Dalya  07:14

Yeah. Well, this was a theme in the Woo Young-woo thing, wasn't it? The Extraordinary Woo Young-woo because they were in love and they were still calling each other 'attorney', I think, or 'lawyer'. 

 

Steph  07:24

Yes, yes, I did watch some of that. I haven't finished it but I remember thinking that they were very formal with each other, even though they were clearly into each other. It was really formal. 

*be into something ~에 관심이 많다, ~을 좋아하다.

 

Dalya  07:38

It's quite cute. 

 

Steph  07:39

It was very cute, yes. Yeah. I'm trying to think if there's any other terms that are different. Or...I suppose if we, I don't know...

 

Dalya  07:53

With family; I read a Korean novel, The Vegetarian, and obviously it's translated into English, but they translated it 'correctly' and as far as I know, in Korea, you do actually call your, for example, your sister-in-law, you would call her 'sister-in-law'. 

*sister-in-law 형수, 처형, 올케, 처제, 처형 등

 

Steph  08:10

Oh, so you wouldn't just use her name.

 

Dalya  08:12

You wouldn't say her name. Just like we say 'mum' and 'dad' and we don't say their names. Yeah. 

 

Steph  08:17

Okay, I see. Oh, I don't know what my parents would have thought if I'd said to them, "Anne" or something. I don't know if they’d answer to that, you know, answer to that name.

 

Dalya  08:32

Some people do call their parents by their names. 

 

Steph  08:34

Do you? 

 

Dalya  08:35

No, but I was watching a video the other day and this woman called her grandma by her name. And someone said to her, "Oh, why do you call your grandma by your name?" And she said, "Oh, because my grandma doesn't want to feel old so she doesn't want to be called 'grandma'." 

 

Steph  08:47

That's funny. I think in my family we would say, yeah, 'mum', 'dad'; only [for] mum and dad, obviously. But if there's extended family, like uncles and aunts, in my family, at least we've always said 'Uncle' plus their first name.

*extended family 대가족

 

Dalya  09:05

But you would never just call them 'uncle' right? That's the difference? 

 

Steph  09:08

Not so much. Not so much. Yeah. 

 

Dalya  09:13

You wouldn't say, "Hi, uncle. How are you doing?" 

 

Steph  09:14

I would, actually. I would. Or I'd say like 'Uncle Chris' or Uncle whoever.

 

Dalya  09:20

You wouldn't say, "Hi, brother-in-law. How are you?" 

 

Steph  09:24

No, I wouldn't do it with brother-in-[law]; it's just an 'uncle' and 'auntie', I think. 

 

Dalya  09:27

Uncle and auntie, yeah. 

 

Steph  09:29

And for example, my husband's nephews and nieces, they refer to me as Auntie Stephanie. Yeah. So they kind of like, say those two words together. You know.

*niece 여자 조카

*refer to A as B A를 B라고 부르다.

 

Dalya  09:41

I've noticed that as I've gotten older, I've stopped calling my aunties and uncles Aunt or Uncle Blah Blah. I just call them by their names now. 

 

Steph  09:48

That is a very good point. Yeah. So I used to do that but more recently as an adult, I've been kind of just calling them by their first name, as well. And I remember-- 

 

Dalya  09:58

Growing up? 

 

Steph  09:59

Growing up? No, it was always 'uncle' or 'auntie'. 

 

Dalya  10:02

No, I mean we're growing up now. 

 

Steph  10:03

We're growing. up. Oh, yeah, yeah. Sadly. 

 

Dalya  10:07

We're maturing like cheddar. 

*mature 어른이 되다, 성숙해지다.

 

Steph  10:08

Yeah. Like a fine wine.

 

Dalya  10:11

Like a fine wine. 

 

Steph  10:13

Well, I think it's time to go to our words that we've mentioned. 

 

Dalya  10:16

It is. 

 

Steph  10:17

Maybe we should start with the most important one, probably, of today, the topic of today, which is to address someone.

 

Dalya  10:23

Yes. And this is a verb, not a noun.

 

Steph  10:27

Exactly, yes. So if you address someone, this action means to use a particular name or a title for somebody when you speak to them or when you write to them.

 

Dalya  10:41

So we might say, for example, there are different ways in which to address a member of the Royal Family, which is obviously a hot topic right now, what with King Charles.

 

Steph  10:53

Yes, that's right. And another example, you could say, "Please address my client by his full name."

 

Dalya  11:02

Yeah. 

 

Steph  11:03

Yeah. So that's a really useful verb. What was our second word?

 

Dalya  11:09

So we mentioned this quite a lot. We said, "Sir". And this is used as a polite way of addressing a man whose name you do not know, for example, in a shop or restaurant.

 

Steph  11:21

That's right. So for example, someone might say, "Good morning, sir. Can I help you?" Or, "Are you ready to order, sir?" 

 

Dalya  11:30

Yeah. 

 

Steph  11:31

So yeah. So people who are serving others would probably say these things. 

 

Dalya  11:36

Yeah. 

 

Steph  11:37

And the final thing, which we said was, 'answer to the name of something'. So what does this mean?

 

Dalya  11:46

It literally means to respond to a specific name. For example, "James only answers to the name of Jim these days."

 

Steph  11:55

Exactly. Or, "My daughter, Mary, has now decided that she only answers to the name Mark." For example. Another hot topic.

 

Dalya  12:05

Yeah. Controversial.

 

Steph  12:08

So yeah, I think that is everything, right?

 

Dalya  12:11

I think so. 

 

Steph  12:12

Yeah. That's all for today. So we're gonna wrap up here, Auntie Dalya. I hope you have a lovely rest of the week.

 

Dalya  12:22

You too.

 

Steph  12:23

Thank you. See you next time for another podcast.

 

Dalya  12:27

Take care. 

 

Steph  12:28

Bye.