Please say it in…

I tried to make friends to several Koreans.  Few years ago, you have to look for a Language Exchange site to get connected to people from other countries.  These sites were specifically made to learn a second language from a native speaker member.  It was not exactly easy and free.  To be able to be ‘searchable’ and ‘to search’ for someone, premium membership is required.  However, these days, with the number of social network sites and App for messaging, the world of language exchange is very accessible.  I met a lot of people who shares the same interest as I do from Facebook and even at LinkedIn.

Chatting via messaging application like Kakaotalk allows me to practice Korean. Up until now it’s a challenge to respond as quickly and natural as I can.  Sometimes I have to request my language exchange partner to say it in English. This is why i learned how to request my Korean friend to say something in English:

영어로 말 해주세요 (Yeongeoro mal haejuseyo).  To break the sentence down:

• 영어로 (Yeongeoro) – Yeongeo is English and the -ro suffix means ‘in’ thus, making  the word mean ‘in English’
• 말 (mal) – say
• 해주세요 (haejuseyo) – please do it

I know it sounds a bit weird to have the ending as please do it but that is just the direct translation.  It is like ‘say in English, please do it’ literally  but of course it actually means ‘Please say it in English’.

So if you want to request someone to say (what he just said in another language) in Korean just replace Yeongeo with Hangugeo.  한국어로 말 해주세요  (Hangugeoro mal haejuseyo) – Please say it in Korean.