[seodisparate]

So in Korean, the word for "you" is 니가 (pronounced "nee-gah"). Example usage: 니가 언제 먹었어요? (When did you eat? "Nee-gah un-jeh mug-uss-uh-yo") I can't help but wonder if the use of this word would also elicit a similar reaction...

EDIT: I briefly forgot this, but there is a similar Korean word "내가" which is "me" or "I", and pronounced "ne-gah". Example usage: 내가 이 밥을 먹었어요. (I ate this food. "Ne-ga ee bap-uhl mug-uss-uh-yo")

EDIT2: Korean is not my native language so forgive me for this, but "you" is usually just 니 ("nee"), and "me" or "I" is just 내 ("ne"), but the 가 ("gah") part is used like a conjunction to connect to the rest of the phrase.

EDIT3: Ok, so I talked with a better Korean speaker about this and 니가 "nee-ga" is sort of a regional dialect (kind of like a slang term) for 너가 "nuh-ga". 니가 "nee-ga" is more commonly used in southern parts of South Korea, as the proper way of saying/spelling "you" is 너가 "nuh-ga". My Korean is influenced with the southern regional dialect as my parents were from that region. Sorry for the possible confusion. (So just "you" is 너 "nuh".)

EDIT4: PSY (of Gangnam Style fame) has a song titled "Champion" that uses 니가 "nee-ga" a lot:https://youtu.be/uA4fV7Y14eg?t=49

[oh_sigh]

Here's a fight(more like an assault on the elderly) that broke out between a black American on a South Korean bus because the elderly people, who probably don't speak a word of English or know English racial slurs, referred to him as "you" in their own language in their own country: https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/88xlz4/a_bl...

[bezmenov]

Black fragility.

[dang]

Would you please stop creating accounts to post flamebait with? We're trying for something else here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[nullsense]

Probably not. The difference in vowel sounds, timing and intonation don't give it the same feel. It's pretty noticable when you hear Mandarin spoken because the word is usually spoken pretty quickly then the speaker trails off because they're thinking of what to say... Sometimes they say it two or three times on a row. So it really stands out.

[whalabi]

Yeah https://youtu.be/s_jWTrRguzU

[crc32]

Of course they would, dropped into a communication course with no prior warning.

If it was a German professor talking about buttermilk do you think he would given a build up?

[logicchains]

"You" and "me" are pronunced "nee-gah" and "ne-gah"? Those sound very similar, does that ever lead to misunderstandings?

[globular-toast]

I know nothing about the language being discussed here, but the answer is no, it doesn't lead to misunderstandings. How do I know this? Because it's a natural language. The language exists for no reason other than the fact that it works. If the words sounded exactly the same you could safely assume that they either communicate the difference some other way, or the difference simply does not matter to them.

An example of communicating something in a different way would be how in Spanish the pronoun is completely dropped in most cases. This is because it's completely redundant as the verb will be conjugated to include the pronoun.

An example of things not mattering is in English where we don't distinguish between rivers that flow into other rivers and rivers that flow into the sea. French speakers might be confused (how do you know whether it's a fleuve or a rivière?), but the answer is we simply don't care.

When learning a natural language, always assume that it works for them. Your aim is not to be able to translate your language to theirs, it is to be able to communicate your thoughts into their minds. Keep an open mind about what's important to transfer and how this can happen.

[hombre_fatal]

> but the answer is no, it doesn't lead to misunderstandings

Natural languages offer misunderstandings between native speakers all the time. A sentence like "Bajó" in Spanish or "They went downstairs" in English can have many different antecedents for the listener to choose between (bad subtitle translations can give you a master class in this). If I say "the food is hot," do I mean it's temperature-hot or spicy-hot?

I would refine your statement to simply point out that natural languages aren't damned by misunderstandings because:

(1) You have the tools to disambiguate ahead of time if you think it might be ambiguous. "Maria bajó", "Maria went downstairs", "They both went downstairs together".

(2) The listener can simply ask for clarification.

(3) It doesn't necessarily matter. The point of the story was that John couldn't enjoy the soup, not whether it was too hot or too spicy.

All that said, I think the person above was just asking how similar the pronunciation was between two words.

[eru]

I just popped 'em both into Google Translate to have the machine pronounce them for me.

I speak no Korean at all, but had no trouble telling them apart. Speakers of the language will undoubtedly be more competent than me.

https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=auto...

[seodisparate]

In Korean, the vowels ㅣ (ee sound) and ㅐ (eh sound) are different in the written language. There are actually more difficult things such as ㅐ and ㅔ (both "eh" sound) which can get confusing when trying to spell Korean words. In practice, I personally don't get confused differentiating between "nee-gah" and "ne-gah", but that may have been due to me having Korean parents and being used to that terminology since birth.

[silicon2401]

Do you ever misunderstand dean and den?

[wwwhizz]

Oof, we better fire all Korean professors. /s

[koheripbal]

Asian's receive an enormous amount of hate from the African American community.

...so I would not be surprised to see that at some point happen at a real university.

At RPI, the number of Asian professors and students plummeted after Shirley Ann Jackson took over.

[Yetanfou]

I wonder how those who want to find the cause of their failure in other people's success eventually deal with the fact that Nigerian immigrants into the USA are far more successful compared to African Americans while they are visually indistinguishable from them. Will the Nigerians be accused of having some form of privilege? Will they be called 'white' just like Asians are now often considered to be 'white'? Will saner minds prevail, find the reasons for their success and emulate these so they end up on the same level?

[anthk]

>Nigerian immigrants into the USA

Nigerian inmigrants travelled an ocean, for sure they have money and a huge set of values, and they are not afraid at all of either racists or potential disadvantages. They had it worse in Nigeria.

Here in Spain the Nigerians are seen as hard workers with an incredible spirit of superation.

[neonate]

It's not so hard to understand. The issue is the legacy of slavery, and Nigerian immigrants aren't dealing with that.

[corey_moncure]

Nigerians today have to deal with the legacy of colonialism, war, pogroms and famine. (1)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_Civil_War "The Nigerian Civil War (also known as the Biafran War and the Nigerian-Biafran War) ... between 500,000 and 3 million Biafran civilians died of starvation."

This is just scratching the surface.

[neonate]

I didn't mean to minimize any of that. There's no global ordering here.

[SpicyLemonZest]

Most racial justice activists don't agree - they believe that there's significant ongoing racism in addition to the legacy of slavery.

[neonate]

They may well be right about that, and yet there's still an obvious difference there. Also, keep in mind that immigrants tend nowadays to come from the better-off strata of their home societies. There was a study about this making the rounds just recently, but I've unfortunately forgotten what it was called.

[ghufran_syed]

Slavery has occurred in almost every society over the years, until the last two or three hundred years, including in Nigeria

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Nigeria

See "Black rednecks and white liberals" by thomas sowell for more info (Thomas sowell is a black american economics professor and writer, for any in the audience who decide what is worth reading based on the skin color or ethnicity of the author)

[andi999]

No worries, people who decide who is worth reading based on skin color also introduced the oreo concept so their world view doesnt have to be challenged.

Pesonally I belive anybody should read Sowell

[xpaqui]

This offhand reason does not happen regularly. There are cases of places without historical slavery who perceived as poor workers and places with historical slavery who are known for their work ethics.

Maybe it's not only "the legacy of slavery".

[gvjddbnvdrbv]

Doesn't Nigeria still have lots of slavery?

[jjeaff]

It's not right, but it's well earned. The african american community also receives a fair amount of hate from the Asian community.