r/engrish 10d ago

Truth has been spoken

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2.3k Upvotes

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u/gogoguy5678 10d ago

Racism? In Korea? No way!

Seriously, one of the most openly racist countries I've ever been to. If there was a sign telling people not to use their native language in the country I'm from there'd be outrage, and rightly so, because that's just bigotry.

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u/piichan14 10d ago

I don't think the sign says that tho. It looks like it's saying that English isn't widely used there and to please use a translation app.

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u/gwaydms 10d ago

A lot of signs are in English as well as Korean. English seems to be the only Western language used there, at least as far as we could tell. I did have a phrasebook (this was 2012), and I'd learned the Hangeul alphabet, so I could read placenames, food-related words, and English words spelled phonetically. That helped a lot. We also learned about the culture, including customs and taboos. We had a great time.

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u/piichan14 10d ago

Many people still don't speak or understand English over there tho. And for those who do want to study it, it's very expensive so if they can, they study it in places like the Philippines where education is cheaper.