I was telling a few of my students about some tongue-twisters today, and they particularly liked the one about woodchucks. But then they surprised me by teaching me a Korean tongue-twister, that I actually was able to understand with a minimal amount of parsing:
“내가 그린 기린 그림은 잘 그린 기린 그림이고 니가 그린 기린 그림은 잘 못 그린 기린 그림이다.”
Since it’s a tongue-twister, for the full effect, here is a transliteration: “Naega geurin girin geurimeun chal girin geurim-igo, niga geurin girin geurimeun chal mot girin geurim-ida.”
And, for your reading pleasure, here is a rough translation: “My picture of a giraffe is a good picture, [but] your picture of a giraffe is not a good picture.”
However, there is the additional confusion that 그린 could be a Konglish rendering of “green,” which makes me think of green giraffes.
I really, really like this phrase. I think it’ll be my motto for the month! Boy is it hard to say, though.
