At some point in my first viewing of Minari, it dawned on me: I hadn’t needed the subtitles. Not really, anyway. There had been moments here and there when they’d come in handy — I don’t think I could have told you the English term for “chicken sexing,” let alone the Korean one — but for the most part, I’d been able to understand the characters intuitively and automatically, no translation needed.
For me, this was a novel experience. Technically, I know Korean. I’ve spoken it all my life, and still use it regularly to chat with my mom, make small talk with my Koreatown hairdresser, or order food at Korean restaurants. (Or rather, I did in the before times.) But I’ve long since accepted that my grasp of the language isn’t very good. I might register a few common phrases while watching Burning or Parasite, but to get the full picture, I’m as reliant on that one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles as any monolingual American might be. Read more…
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