Reading my essay you see a polished, well presented text. My word choice, sentence structure, grammar all follow the rules of organized English. I am a native English speaker but English isn’t my first language. While I grew up learning English from a young age, went to an international school, and speak English with my bilingual parents at home, much of my life, thoughts, conversations with friends and the general environment I am immersed in is in Korean.
I often find myself thinking in Korean and trying to express my thoughts in English and vice versa. I switch back and forth between Korean and English, even within the same sentence. I’ll throw in English words into Korean sentences and vice versa. Sometimes I will use the dreaded ‘konglish,’ using English words with Korean grammar or logic. Heck even my dreams are bilingual.
Essay proof reading can take many forms. Students may want their essays for school projects checked. College application essays are proofread, leading to countless rewrites. But one important type of proof-reading service is nonnative speakers who write their essays in another language. Even for bilingual speakers like myself, I sometimes find it challenging to capture a Korean idea in English.
Take the word 눈치 ‘noonchie’ for example. There really isn’t any direct translation in English. The common translation most Koreans give is ‘sense.’ For example, ‘she has really good sense.’ But when I read this so many thoughts flood my head. When I first if I read that sentence, ignoring all my Korean background, I may think the person dresses well as in good fashion sense. And as a Korean native speaker, so many things are missing. Noonchie means having a sense of how others around you are feeling or what they are thinking.
If its getting late but I am having fun, but actually my friend is tired and wants me to leave, ‘having noonchie’ would tell me its time to go home. Noonchie is also about mind reading and knowing what to do or say in a particular situation. Noonchie can refer to unwritten rules, like knowing your place or giving respect to certain people like your elders. Noonchie is also about reading body language and reacting properly. This challenge goes beyond even language as there are cultural aspects at play. In India for example, a similar gesture asking if someone is hungry can be interpreted in in Italy as meaning something that is offensive.
The point is it can be very difficult to understand cultural nuances and the languages which try express them. It’s an even bigger challenge to reflect these nuances in another language. This is one way in which an essay proofreading service can help people express themselves in another language.
Let me try to bring into focus using an example. This last summer I interned at a hot dog restaurant that is expanding its business overseas. As part of my responsibilities I would review my bosses English emails. One such email read:
“Dear Mr. John,
It is the beginning of a hot summer. It would be nice for us to enjoy the breeze or day-dream. I am so hard to write in English but I want to thank you for our meeting yesterday. My team and I have a warm and passionate heart for our business. I can also feel your love and care for us. I am sure we can have a great relationship.
I will try day and night to show my passion and to make our time together a success. Please make contact with me if you need anything.
Thank you,
Mr. Kim”
Aside from the glaring errors like using dear Mr. followed by a first name, you can see how when expressing one culture in another language, you can have inherent misunderstandings and awkwardness in the new language. In Korean culture you display your sincerity towards people or tasks by using language that in English would come across as strange or ‘too much.’ In the second sentence Mr. Kim is simply trying to express he hopes to work closely to the point that they will get to know each other better to where they can spend time together on a personal level and have a good working relationship. In Korean culture its very common for colleagues and business partners to become quite close, however it seems strange in English. Later in tying to express his dedication to the business and enthusiasm to work hard for its success, he uses flowery language like you might expect to see in a romance novel. He mentions ‘love’ and ‘care’ and ‘passion’ which when translated into Korean it makes sense but in English appears a bit awkward. Mr. Kim even told me one day that John had mistaken him for being gay.
These kind of flowery and over the top expressions are not just found in simple emails. A famous example was the essay which North Korean leader Kim Jung Un wrote to former US president Donald Trump. In it he expressed:
“declarations of personal fealty that might be uttered by the Knights of the Round Table, or perhaps suitors.“
“reminiscent of a scene from a fantasy film.“
“I also believe that the deep and special friendship between us will work as a magical force,“
Once again we see language that is too much and certainly not appropriate for a political partnership. Many global observers thought this was just something unique to the hermit kingdom, but I recognized right away this was a common issue faced when writing emails, essays and other kinds of communication in another language.
Proofreading services are not simply about fixing grammar mistakes or making pretty sentences. They also play a critical role in allowing nonnative speakers to express themselves in a way as purely and unadulterated as their original language. The proof readers job then is to minimize their footprint on the text as they provide corrections and simply act as a liaison between two languages, allowing for true freedom of expression.
By: Young Ju Seo
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