- The English written in these translations are largely based off of the English used within the United States of America.
- I will try to keep the “format” of the text to reflect the original Korean’s format and will try to preserve the “literary style”.
- What I mean by that is Korean novels often do not preface speaking parts like
He said, “Let’s go home.”
Instead, you are usually left to derive from context who is speaking. - Korean writers will often employ sentence fragments deliberately for emphasis and de-emphasis. This may sound awkward in English but I will try to preserve this literary style. If you want more natural-sounding conversation, go read what I’ve been translating over on the webtoon scanlations, instead. No, I will not make it sound like a full-blown MTL, or anything.
- What I mean by that is Korean novels often do not preface speaking parts like
- I will keep writing surnames first and given names second as I did in the webtoon scanlation.
- I hate the “standard spelling” because ㅓ is written “eo” normally and I’ll be darned if anyone sees “eo” and says the sound in his/her head correctly. I will use my own spelling as I see fit – this is very deliberate and I will not be listening to anyone trying to “correct” my spelling.
- I will be writing footnotes every time someone is addressed by his/her title along with his/her name. I.e. When the Korean text says “Department Head Jung”, I will write “Ms. Jung” and put a footnote with “Department Head” next to it.
- I will be adding people’s names and common transliterated words to a glossary if you want to map Korean names to English transliterated spellings. I.e. I will often leave in 오빠 as “oppa” and put in a translator’s note the first one or two times it appears. It will appear in the glossary.
- Swear words will be written out in full unless they were censored in the original Korean – no one under age 13 or 15 should be reading these translations, as a result.
GLOSSARY OF COMMON TERMS
- “Spoken out loud” – double quotes are for speech
- ‘Unheard thoughts’ – single quotes are for thoughts
- <Sound effects that are better explained> – between angle brackets when a sound effect is better off explained rather than transliterated
Titles
- nim = a formal way of addressing someone (used with
- ssi = a slightly informal / casual formal way of addressing someone
- sunbae = one’s senior in one’s school/company/etc. (someone who has started something before oneself)
- hoobae = one’s junior in one’s school/company/etc. (someone who has started somethinga after oneself)
- noona = older sister (to a male) — women not related by blood can be addressed as such if considered close by the male
- unni = older sister (to a female) — women not related by blood can be addressed as such if considered close by the female
- hyung = older brother (to a male) — men not related by blood can be addressed as such if considered close by the male
- oppa = older sister (to a female) — men not related by blood can be addressed as such if considered close by the female