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Sentence in Korean - HELP! | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Balliballi Groupie Korea, SouthRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4693 days ago 70 posts - 115 votes  Studies: Korean | Message 1 of 15 22 January 2012 at 6:57am | IP Logged | ||
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The sentence is: "칭찬도 칭찬 나름이지 그런 칭찬은 안 하느니만 못해요." I know it means "Praise though it may have been, it would have been better left unsaid."
So I am not concerned about understanding what this sentence is trying to say (it's saying don't give praise if you are not sincere about it), I am concerned about the construction of the sentence and how it leads to this meaning. I've asked several Koreans about this and most of them spend a long time explaining the meaning of the sentence which I already know, giving examples about when someone gives false praise and so forth. And they don't spend much time explaining the grammatical construction of this sentence, or give a poor and vague explanation of it, leaving me in the dark, the same as before. I know "느니". The clause that comes after this is preferred by the speaker to the clause that appears before it. So 느니 is like "better than" in a way. Eg. "추운 하숙집에 가느니 교실에 있는 게 편해." means "It's more comfortable to stay in the classroom than go to my cold boarding room." So I don't have a problem with 느니. I also understand "칭찬도 칭찬 나름이지". So the first part of the sentence I have no worries about. It's the second part: "그런 칭찬은 안 하느니만 못해요" To me this translates as: "As for praise like this" (그런 칭찬은) "the only thing better than" (느니만) "not doing it (giving praise like this)" ("안 하") "is not to be able to (give praise like this) (못해요). -------------- Apparently, I am not on the right track. Two people have said that "안 하" means "not doing anything". They don't explain the "못해요" part but they say that this part "안 하느니만 못해요" means "Giving praise like this is worse than doing nothing." I really don't understand this. "못해요" Doesn't this mean "cannot do" or less commonly "do not do"? Do what? Give praise? Or something else? Like a more general meaning? Isn't "안 하" and "못해요" basically the same? Have the same meaning? So why is one better than the other in the speaker's opinion? "The only thing better than not giving praise like this is not giving praise like this." OR "The only thing better than giving praise like this is not being able to give praise like this." Both sentences are strange especially the first one. Maybe the second sentence makes more sense but I've asked Koreans whether this is the correct interpretation and they say no, it isn't. Then I thought it could mean this: "As for praise like this, doing nothing is only worse than not being able to do anything." In other words, "doing nothing" is the best course of action. Or put in another way: "As for praise like this, not being able to do anything is the only thing worse than doing nothing." Is that close to the correct translation of this sentence? They can't tell me WHAT the speaker says he/she can't do or does not do. It's very frustrating when Korean people, who speak English very well, cannot explain simple things like what the object of the verb "do" is. Even if they just say the object of the verb is "anything" as in "don't do anything", it would help, but they don't. They just say it's a saying and that yes, Korean is a difficult language, and leave it at that. If someone can explain it, word by word, what it translates into in English, it would be wonderful. It's been annoying me for weeks. I've asked several people about it and they haven't been able to make it clear. Edited by Balliballi on 22 January 2012 at 7:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vientito Senior Member Canada Joined 6339 days ago 212 posts - 281 votes | Message 2 of 15 26 January 2012 at 12:07am | IP Logged | ||
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There is a subtle difference between those two negatives. Check this site
http://koreanselfstudyisntlame.blogspot.com/search/label/neg ation 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vientito Senior Member Canada Joined 6339 days ago 212 posts - 281 votes | Message 3 of 15 26 January 2012 at 12:08am | IP Logged | ||
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on the section written on 안 vs 못
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| GREGORG4000 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5524 days ago 307 posts - 479 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish Studies: Japanese, Korean, Amharic, French | Message 4 of 15 26 January 2012 at 1:51am | IP Logged | ||
According to this:
I guess that pattern means something like "I cannot do anything preferable to (whatever precedes 느니)", and this particular grammar pattern is just another one of those which is innate to Korean speakers but not/barely documented online. Edited by GREGORG4000 on 26 January 2012 at 2:05am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Balliballi Groupie Korea, SouthRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4693 days ago 70 posts - 115 votes Studies: Korean | Message 5 of 15 27 January 2012 at 1:46am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the explanations, vientito and GREGORG4000.
"I cannot do anything preferable to (whatever precedes 느니)" GREGORG4000, I think your interpretation is the clearest one I have come across. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Odysseus Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4992 days ago 19 posts - 28 votes Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 15 28 January 2012 at 12:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think your misunderstanding is coming from a misinterpretation of "못하다" It's not "못 하다" (cannot do), but rather "못하다" (to be inferior). Thus, it means, "to do other than not make that kind of compliment is inferior," meaning it's better to not do it.
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| Balliballi Groupie Korea, SouthRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4693 days ago 70 posts - 115 votes Studies: Korean | Message 8 of 15 02 February 2012 at 3:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I looked up "못하다". It says "cannot". Another meaning is "fail to do, miss doing" = 하지 못하다 . Examples are 승진하지 못하다 = fail the promotion, 상품을 타지 못하다 = fail to win the prize.
So maybe that sentence means, "the only thing better than not giving praise like this is to fail to do it."
Whatever is after 느니 is better than what's before it. So if 못하다 means "inferior", the sentence says "inferior" is better than not giving praise. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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