Britcent - [S6E14] Parents and Children

Steph  00:02

Hi, Dalya. 

 

Dalya  00:03

Hello, Stephanie. How you doing today?

 

Steph  00:06

I'm good, thank you; all okay. How are you?

 

Dalya  00:09

Very well, thank you. Depressed about winter, as usual.

 

Steph  00:12

Of course. Yes, it's just around the corner. Unfortunately, we've had a short summer, but yes, it's time to get the woolies out.

*around the corner (거리, 시간적으로) 임박하여, 고비를 넘겨, 모퉁이를 돈 곳에

*woolies 따뜻한 옷

 

Dalya  00:20

I like that part. I do like jumpers.

 

Steph  00:22

Do you? See, I prefer summer dresses and flip-flops. 

 

Dalya  00:27

Oh, I like that, too. 

 

Steph  00:28

If I could live in them, I would. 

 

Dalya  00:29

Yeah. 

 

Steph  00:31

Yeah. It seems to be, you know, it seems to have come round too quickly.

 

Dalya  00:35

Yeah. We had an Indian summer, as they call it.

 

Steph  00:39

That's right. Yes. 'Indian summer' basically means that it's later in the year than usual, right? 

 

Dalya  00:46

Well, someone actually told me today the origins of that word and it has its roots in colonial Britain, the Raj, basically because people were there in September and it was still hot. When we have, yeah, a kind of late summer here, people refer to it as an Indian summer.

*raj 영국의 인도 통치

 

Steph  01:02

Oh, that's interesting. Well, I would say that a lot of other European countries do have warm weather. Like, southern European, obviously. Around August, September, like it's quite nice normal--

 

Dalya  01:15

Till October, it's May till October that's the kind of the warm hot season, isn't it? Yeah.

 

Steph  01:19

Exactly. In fact, sometimes it's nicer to go away around that time because there's fewer tourists and stuff. Anyway, on to our topic-- and fewer children, yes. Which is-- 

 

Dalya  01:33

Our topic today.

 

Steph  01:34

Our topic, yeah. How did you do that? 

 

Dalya  01:36

I'm just so clever. 

 

Steph  01:40

This is one of our many episodes of this--

 

Dalya  01:43

Infinite podcast.  

 

Steph  01:44

--particular series. Yeah, exactly. Back by popular demand, though, which is great. And as always, we're comparing Korean and British culture based on information from our Korean students at Britcent. And today, we're talking about parents and children. So, relationships between parents and children, and how that dynamic might differ between cultures.

*by popular demand 대중의 수요에 따라

*dynamic (서로 관계되는 세력, 영향력 사이의) 역학

 

Dalya  02:12

And we don't just mean children as in people under 18. We need mean parents and their children, so they could be-- the children could be adults, they could be 20, 30, 50, 90.

*as in ~경우와 같이

 

Steph  02:24

That's a very good point, actually. Yes. And as usual, our listeners, if you could try to listen out for three useful, interesting phrases that we're going to use today, and then we'll come back to them at the end and give you some examples. 

 

Dalya  02:39

Yes. 

 

Steph  02:43

So, let's dive in then, shall we?

*dive in 열심히 착수하다, 몰두하다.

 

Dalya  02:46

Absolutely. So why are we talking about this, then?

 

Steph  02:51

Well, that's a good question. I think because we have noticed some differences in relationships like this. For example, in my case, I've noticed that perhaps the relationship between parents and children in Korea seems to be a bit more formal.

 

Dalya  03:16

I was gonna say the word 'formal', yeah. 

 

Steph  03:18

Yeah. So I've had a few students who say that they don't really regularly hug their parents. You know, like that physical contact? 

 

Dalya  03:28

Or say, "I love you." 

 

Steph  03:30

Yeah, or say things like that. Yeah, exactly. And I don't know if that's just a handful of students, or whether this is a very normal thing in Korea. You'll have to tell us if we're wrong here, guys. But how does that compare to British parent-child relationships, generally? Obviously, we're generalising here.

*handful 움큼, 몇 안되는 수

 

Dalya  03:50

Well, that obviously also depends because, you know, some people are super close to their parents and ring them every day and tell them they love them and hug them. And some people see them at Christmas and that's it. 

 

Steph  03:59

Yes, yes. It's true. 

 

Dalya  04:01

So I suppose it really depends but-- 

 

Steph  04:03

It does, it really does. 

 

Dalya  04:04

Interestingly, I think about the formal relationships that, on the flip side, in one way they're almost more caring because it seems that while their relationships might be more formal, the parents do more for their children. It seems that when you get married, parents will buy really expensive things for your house, like washing machines and fridge-freezers, which I don't think is that common here.

*on the flip side 반면에, 다른 한편으로는

 

Steph  04:29

That's true, actually. Yes. I mean, I would always think that parents would, you know, try to support their kids financially if they needed them to, I suppose-- 

 

Dalya  04:39

If they could. 

 

Steph  04:39

--like if they were in trouble. If they could, obviously. But I don't think there's that much of an expectation necessarily, especially for big things. You know, like you wouldn't necessarily expect someone's parents to be paying for--

 

Dalya  04:55

Kimchi fridge. 

 

Steph  04:57

A kimchi fridge? 

 

Dalya  04:58

Yeah, I wouldn't say no. I wouldn't say no. Yeah, you apparently have a whole separate fridge for kimchi.

 

Steph  05:03

I actually saw that on a YouTube short the other day and I was like, "Wow, amazing." 

 

Dalya  05:08

Very cool. 

 

Steph  05:09

What would I put in my kimchi fridge? Because obviously, I don't really eat that much kimchi. Maybe cheese.

 

Dalya  05:15

Cheese! 

 

Steph  05:15

Probably cheese. Yeah, a cheese fridge.

 

Dalya  05:17

A cheese-- that sounds great, half cheese, half kimchi.

 

Steph  05:20

That sounds brilliant. They probably go together quite well.

 

Dalya  05:23

Not sure about that.

 

Steph  05:25

Maybe like a nice salty cheese. 

 

Dalya  05:27

Yeah. 

 

Steph  05:32

But...yeah, I remember when I was a kid, for example, when I was a child, I was growing up, my grandparents used to always say, you know, "Respect your elders." 

 

Dalya  05:42

Oh god. 

 

Steph  05:42

That was always a very common phrase. 

 

Dalya  05:46

Yeah, chills down my spine.

*send chills up and down somebody's spine ~의 등줄기를 오싹하게 만들다.

 

Steph  05:47

Do you remember this?

 

Dalya  05:47

Absolutely, yeah. My grandma would say this. She always tried to be very traditional. She would literally say, "No elbows on the table." Very traditional like that. And yeah, I didn't like it, to be honest.

 

Steph  06:02

No, I mean, who would, really, as a child. But when you're an adult, do you feel like those lessons served you well, as an adult?

 

Dalya  06:11

I don't think that's my place to say.

 

Steph  06:12

Not your place to say?! 

 

Dalya  06:15

Depends what other people think about how I was raised. No, I think it was just-- I do think there should be boundaries between parents and children, because your relationship is not, you know, you're not the same people, you are on different levels. But again, it's just very kind of restrictive and old-fashioned.

*restrictive 제한하는, 구속하는

 

Steph  06:35

Yeah, I agree with you. It's kind of almost Victorian. 

*Victorian 빅토리아 여왕 시대 사람

 

Dalya  06:38

Absolutely. That's the word. 

 

Steph  06:41

Yeah. And in that time, they used to say that "children should be seen and not heard."

 

Dalya  06:47

"--seen and not heard." I knew what you were gonna say yes. Yeah, well, sometimes I think we forget that our parents - so you and I, Steph, we're in our 30s - our parents, they were raised by people who were raised by Victorians. Actual Victorians. Is that right? It's my maths history right? 

 

Steph  07:03

Yes, yes. It must be. Well, I remember my mum saying that at her school when she was a child, like, you know, punishments were corporal. Like they used to sometimes use a cane, for example. 

*cane (대나무 처럼 속이 빈) 줄기

 

Dalya  07:19

If you talked back to the teacher.

*talk back to ~에게 말대꾸하다.

 

Steph  07:21

Yeah, if you talk back to or, you know, you're out of line, let's say, you'd get punished. Which I think is also something that was true in Korea, until maybe a little later than-- 

 

Dalya  07:35

Yeah, fairly recently, I think. 

 

Steph  07:37

--UK. More recently, this was stopped.

 

Dalya  07:39

I think one of my students, who is our age, maybe a few years older than us, said that she got it.

 

Steph  07:46

Really? Wow. Okay, so really recently, then.

 

Dalya  07:49

Yeah, I have a long metre wooden ruler that I use for crafts and stuff. And often when I see that, I think of that. I think our parents' generation must be terrified when they see that; the association they would have in their minds.

*association 연상, 협회, 제휴

 

Steph  08:04

Very triggering, I'm sure. That's right. But I think in that time, like, you know that, that-- yeah, so children were expected to kind of do as their parents said. Not necessarily question things as much as they do now. And I guess that kind of extends also to the workplace, perhaps. You know, like, in the past, workers were just expected to get on with their work, like just accept what the boss--

*extend to ~까지 미치다.

*get on with ~을 해나가다.

 

Dalya  08:34

Don't question the boss. 

 

Steph  08:35

--is saying. Don't question anything. But nowadays--

 

Dalya  08:38

Millennials walking around in flip-flops on the same level as their boss. 

 

Steph  08:42

I know, it's so informal in comparison. And I think the relationship between parents and children has become more informal, don't you think?

 

Dalya  08:51

Yeah, definitely. I mean, yeah, I can't say whether it's definitely a good thing or a bad thing. I think it's too soon to tell. It's like one big social experiment. But you do hear now a lot of parents are saying they want to be friends with their children. I think there's actually a phrase for I saw on the internet, 'gentle parenting'. 

 

Steph  09:08

Oh, yes, I've heard of gentle parenting. 

*gentle parenting (자녀의 요구를 중시하는) 친절한 양육

 

Dalya  09:09

You've heard of it. It is a thing, then.

 

Steph  09:11

Yeah. But then there's some people who make fun of that and say that you're weak, you're being weak and petty, and you know, that kind of thing. And that you should just get your child to toughen up type thing, you know? And I'm kind of in between those two, I think. Maybe it's my generation, perhaps. I kind of think that if I was to have a child, I'd obviously want to, I would want them to be able to come to me with their worries and to be able to confide in me and trust me, and not expect me to be angry with them or to be strict with them, necessarily. But at the same time, I would want that level of respect, that I'm not their friend, only their friend, do you know what I mean?

*make fun of ~을 놀리다.

*petty 사소한, 하찮은, 쩨쩨한

*toughen up 완전히 강해지다.

*confide in ~에게 비밀을 털어놓다.

 

Dalya  09:55

Yeah, you're setting them up for the world, aren't you? Because not everybody in the world is going to be their friend, there will be people who are not nice to them. And they have to know how to deal with that.

 

Steph  10:04

That's right. Exactly. I think it's a fine line between being too friendly with your parents and having that distance. Do you know what I mean?

*fine line 가는 선

 

Dalya  10:16

Absolutely. So, people listening, check back with us in 30 years and see how we did. 

*check back 다시 연락하다, 만나다.

 

Steph  10:21

Exactly. 

 

Dalya  10:21

See if we were good parents or not.

 

Steph  10:23

Let's see, let's see. So, should we go back to the words and phrases that we used today? 

 

Dalya  10:30

Absolutely. 

 

Steph  10:32

Okay, so I'm gonna go with 'respect your elders' as the first one that I used. This is a common idiom. So it basically is the idea that you should show respect to people who have more experience than you, which obviously includes people who are older than you or elderly, let's say. 

 

Dalya  10:55

Much older, right? Usually the next generation.

 

Steph  10:57

We normally use it for the next generation, unless you're trying to be sassy.

*sassy 건방진, 멋진, 대담한

 

Dalya  11:01

Yeah, my sister was trying to be funny. She's like a year and a half older than me, and she took some of my chips. And I was like, "Hey!" and she said, "Respect your elders."

 

Steph  11:08

There you go. You can use it that way, as a joke, as well. So you could say, for example, "You should always give up your seat to someone older than you. Don't you know that you should respect your elders?" 

 

Dalya  11:20

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's commonplace in Korea, isn't it? 

*commonplace 아주 흔한

 

Steph  11:24

It must be, it must be, yeah. 

 

Dalya  11:25

And here as well.  

 

Steph  11:27

Yeah, I remember very vividly my granddad getting on the bus with me when I was very little. I must have been about five or six. And I remember, I didn't know that rule because I hadn't come across it yet. And I very vividly remember him grabbing my hand and saying, "Get up!" because there was an older lady who wanted to sit down. I was thinking, "Why should I, why should I stand up?" But obviously, as a child, you just, I didn't know it.

*vividly 아주 생생하게

*come across ~을 접하다, ~을 우연히 발견하다.

 

Dalya  11:56

Was she older than him? Because I'm surprised nobody got up for your granddad.

 

Steph  12:00

I think he was sitting down and I was sitting down. And then he kind of like grabbed my hand to kind of get me up so that someone else could take my place. 

 

Dalya  12:09

Wow. 

 

Steph  12:10

But I was thinking, "Why should I be doing this?" And then obviously, you learn, right? I mean, I was tiny.

 

Dalya  12:16

What a great example. I suppose if you were young, he would have been quite young as well. He wouldn't be considered old-old, then.

 

Steph  12:23

I mean, he must have been quite old. I don't know. 

 

Dalya  12:26

And then you get into the politics of--

 

Steph  12:28

Well, he looked, let's just say he looked old to me. As a five-year-old, everyone looks old. 

 

Dalya  12:33

It's true. 

 

Steph  12:36

Funny. Okay, so enough about 'respect your elders'. What else did we say?

 

Dalya  12:43

We also said 'children should be seen and not heard'. And this is more like a kind of proverb, I'd say, because it's supposed to teach you something. And so we could say, "Our grandparents believed in the notion that children should be seen and not heard."

*proverb 속담

*notion 개념, 관념

 

Steph  13:02

Yeah, basically 'be quiet'.

 

Dalya  13:05

'Shut up.'

 

Steph  13:06

Yeah. Don't make a lot of noise. Don't like speak loads. Just be there. 

 

Dalya  13:13

Only speak if you're spoken to, blah, blah, blah. 

 

Steph  13:15

That kind of thing. Yeah. 

 

Dalya  13:17

We could also say, "Many people nowadays think the idea that children should be seen and not heard is old-fashioned and not good for kids."

 

Steph  13:27

Yeah. Okay, good. And the last one that we said was 'to talk back to someone'. You could also say 'to answer back to someone'. You could also say it the other way round, right? Like you could say, 'answer someone back'. 

 

Dalya  13:46

Yeah, I think so. 

 

Steph  13:47

Like, "Don't answer me back." You could say something like that. Not with 'talk', though, only with 'answer'. And the meaning of this is basically to answer someone in a rude way, especially somebody who's in authority, you know, someone who's higher up, let's say, than you. 

*higher-up 윗사람

 

Dalya  14:02

Yeah, it implies you're questioning their authority.

 

Steph  14:05

That's right. Yeah, like you don't want to listen to what they're teaching you, let's say. So you could say, for example, "Little children shouldn't talk back to their parents." Or, "How could you answer back to your boss like that?"

 

Dalya  14:22

Yeah. It's often said in anger. Yeah. Like, "Don't talk back to your mother!" 

 

Steph  14:27

Yeah, exactly. Okay, I think that covers everything--

 

Dalya  14:33

I think it does.

 

Steph  14:34

--for today. I'm sure there's lots more we can say but we are time-bound with these podcasts.

*time-bound 기한이 정해져 있는

 

Dalya  14:39

That's our Parenting 101 over.

 

Steph  14:41

Exactly. Yeah. Parenting 101 from two people who are not parents. 

 

Dalya  14:48

We have no children, yeah, 

 

Steph  14:49

Yeah. Let's see what the parents think in the comments.

 

Dalya  14:52

Yeah. If you have children, if you're from Korea or not from Korea, let us know.

 

Steph  14:56

Yeah. What do you think of these, this kind of, you know, this behavior, let's say. Yeah, all right, well, I will see you next time, Dalya. Pleasure talking to you.

 

Dalya  15:08

You too. Have a lovely week and I will see you soon. 

 

Steph  15:11

You too, take care. Bye-bye.