“Without proverbs, the language would be but skeleton without a flesh, a body without soul.”
It has been said that to understand a people, you must know their proverbs. There’s a lot of merit to this argument, especially since proverbs tend represent a common set of values, beliefs and ideals for a culture.
Each week, UnitedKpop brings you three Korean proverbs that you can use in everyday life (and sound like a complete boss). This is for all you wanting to know more about the language than the “Annyeong” and “Saranghae”, wanting to get deeper into the psyche of the typical Korean. And in honour of the medieval Sungkyunkwan educational institute (of Sungkyunkwan Scandal international fame), we call this column “Taehak Proverbs“.
사공이 많으면 배가 산으로 간다
Phonetic: “Sagong’i maneumyeon baega saneu’ro ganda.”
Literal: “Having too many oarsmen can lead a boat to a mountain.”
Meaning: “If too many people are in charge, things will go wrong.”
Many cultures have a version of this old proverb. The common English version is “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”
소 잃고 외양간 고치기
Phonetic: “So ilgo waeyang’gan gochigi.”
Literal: “Repairing the stable after the cow has been lost.”
Meaning: “To attempt to prevent a problem only to find it has already happened.”
As mentioned in a previous lesson, cows were very valuable and important for farming Koreans. Which is why it probably is used here instead of another animal like in the English equivalent of the idiom, “Shut the stable door after the horse has bolted.”
개구리 올챙이 적 생각도 못 한다
Phonetic: “Gaeguri olchaengi jeok saeng’gakdo mot handa.”
Literal: “Frogs cannot think of tadpoles as their enemy.”
Meaning: “You can never really hate those who are like you were before.”
Even if you find someone younger, less experienced or less knowledgeable than you to be annoying, there’s a part of you that understands them. You understand the position that they’re in and perspective that they have, and so it makes it hard for you to dislike them as people. It would be like hating who you used to be too… and this applies to other people when you observe relationships.
The choice of words used in the proverb is quite telling. The language implies that the frog doesn’t even have a conscious choice to make, that the frog is actually incapable of thinking of the tadpole as his enemy.
The elders would say that even if a senior seems to be harsh on a junior, it’s not because the former hates the latter, because a frog cannot think of a tadpole as his enemy. More often than not, the senior (whether misguided or not) has a desire to toughen up the junior, to prepare for the harsh realities that he himself had to face.
Thoughts on this weeks proverbs?
Any topics you want covered in the next edition?
Leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comments below!
