Hi @anthonyparker80_342!!
Nice to see you out online! 
On all three, my lol 
tears are flowing! That last one I’ll give you the thread, it’ll go with nicely. 
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Thank you all for your feedback. As you probably already know, sometimes there’s no perfectly right translation and each variation has its own merits and deficiencies. That’s why someone said translation is not an exact science, but a form of art. It’s also the reason that every subber will translate any given sentence slightly differently, unless if it’s something really simple, like “hi,” or “thank you.”
10,000 (“man”) is actually pronounced more like “mahn” with the long “ah” sound.
Creative, but a bit unconventional. 
This is a way “professional” translators typically do it. Netflix translators and other movie translators usually do it this way to simply convey the meaning, and not bother with Korean word play or cultural implications. It’s not wrong to do it this way. But we at Viki typically try to keep and explain “Korean-ness” more since Viki users seem to be more interested in learning Korean language and culture.
See? If we had just translated it as “too much money,” then this discussion would not have come up and you would never have learned how our numbering system works. 
This is another reason why we want to keep the Korean way in this case, because other languages, such as Chinese may be able to translate it more accurately in their language. If we had just said, “because I spend too much money on him,” then Chinese subbers would have lost an opportunity to accurately translate this particular sentence.
Aww, thanks, jc! That’s so sweet of you to say that. The drama itself wasn’t spectacular, but it’s watchable enough, and hopefully the rest of the translation is good. Please let me know if you do find any translations that may not be clear, if you do decide to watch.
Ok, how about this then?
“My dog’s name is Goo Baek (900 in Korean), because I spend goo-baek-mahn won ($9000) on him each month.”
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Bravo! 
Perfection! I’m still learning too! The correct romanization is key!
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Ooh this is perfect! I actually wouldn’t have noticed it if I was watching alone but my brother was all “Man? Which man?”
I’ll have to search for timing because i was binge watching 
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This is precisely why I believe it may be beneficial for an English editor to not know Korean. Since my brain had already processed that sentence in Korean, the original English subtitle didn’t seem weird to me at all at that time, and that “man won” was simply 만원 (10,000) and nothing more. It didn’t occur to me some viewers may think of some man winning some money! lol
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I would like to suggest, too. Not sure if it would make sense to non-native speakers.
My dog’s name is Goo Baek (900 in Korean), because I spend goo baek thousand won ($9000) on him each month.
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No, “man” is 10,000 - not 1000
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oooh. Then “goo baek ten thousand” will be unnecessarily long. Goo baek mahn is better then.
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That still doesn’t explained is 900 won a month.
Separating those two sentence with a period is best because if not, the sentence is considered a run-on sentence, although the word because was added in the sentence which can unite those two sentence in an English sentence (rules of writing).
I suggest this way although would love to ‘‘hear’’ and ''know* the correct dialogue in Korean. There are some inconsistencies in the amount of money.
만 원 (man won). The first half 만 (man) means 10,000. The last is once again Won.
Goo in Korean had several meaning one of them was: price.
Baek other meaning was: the color white. Was the dog white in the drama?
@angelight313_168
My dog’s name is Goo Baek man won (10,000 in korean money). That is because I spend that much on him every month.
That keeps the joke intact, and makes more sense as a structure english sentence, and not a run-on sentence.
By the way, in my understanding I didn’t find 900 as the value of Baekman won. that interesting enough in USA money is now in the market: $8.24. the joke is that in reality, he’s not really spending that much. That’s a joke.
Since Goo in Korean also means price, the following makes more sense
Baek man won?
1,000,000 is 백만/baek man. Let’s practice how to conjugate these big numbers. 1,000 won is about 1 US dollar* . 1,000,000 won is 1,000 US dollar.
If we get the correct Korean translation in the drama, then, we can know the real amount in won (korean money) the owner is spending in the dog.
This is the main reason I say that certain Korean sentence makes no sense to the English speaker/reader (that doesn’t know Korean) because the Korean translation has flaws, and the subber has not done enough research to give the most close as possible translation from Korean to English.
In my opinion, @choitrio always accomplish that in her translations since her English proficiency is really good so she’s able to catch those things right away.
Her input would be very useful here, too. I COULD BE WRONG since I don’t know the Korean Language, and I just did a short ‘‘research’’ which can be half and half right or wrong.
Please save the original pun.
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Goo baek man won means 9 million won.
Goo baek = 900
Man = 10000
In the Korean number system, it is literally 900 10000 won.
Its not a joke. He is lying to her and pretending he’s rich. I think @ajumma2’s suggestion was the best, since it saves the original meaning
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I though the thread was about ‘‘funny subbing mistakes’’ that the mistake in them becomes a joke, and makes us laugh. Several lines here in dramas are a testament to that statement. They have made me laugh.
It was also funny for me to think a person can spend so much for a dog in a month, but coming from the drama [TLOTBS] you mentioned in the other thread; that explains to me a whole lot.
Thanks for the added info.
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I agree with you that @ajumma2 should stick to the first original subtitle since it’s the best option, given the case it wasn’t really intended to be a joke, but a sarcastic true statement.
That clears the [Funny subbing mistake issue] so much better, and in the process we can learn something new each day, and still can laugh about it in the end. I laughed.
@spaufler_89 @vivi_1485
PS. Forgot to note here that in the English language [@ajumma2] needs to erase the comma before the word [because] since ‘‘because’’ was added in the sentence, and it no longer requires a comma.
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For the subtitle involving the dog’s name, Goo Baek, wouldn’t it have been a lot cleaner to have something like “My dog’s name is Goo Baek because I spend goo-baek (900 in Korean, referring to 9,000,000 won) on him each month.”?
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I’ve been catching up on some of the older K-dramas on Viki and I noticed that 대포폰 (dae-po-phone) was translated as “cannon phone” throughout a series. This is an example of literal/Google translation. Although 대포 does mean “cannon” and 대포폰 is translated as “cannon phone” on Google, it actually refers to a “burner phone”.
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@choitrio
For the subtitle involving the dog’s name, Goo Baek, wouldn’t it have been a lot cleaner to have something like “My dog’s name is Goo Baek because I spend goo-baek (900 in Korean, referring to 9,000,000 won) on him each month.”?
Well, your sentence is not explaining what Goo Baek stands for clearly enough. For me, that don’t know Korean, I’ll have no idea what it really means, unless of course I do a Google Search. But even then, there were so many inconsistencies when I was looking for Goo Baek definition that I know I would never understand which is the correct meaning. Like I mentioned before, I found that Goo can mean price and on the other hand, Baek can also mean the color: white.
In money they had two options, and they mentioned something about sino korean value in money. Everything was so confusing that I lost the desire to keep looking for a right way to phrase what is supposed to be…the real purpose of this sentence/subtitle.
vivi_1485
Its not a joke. He is lying to her and pretending he’s rich.
So I believe it was more like a sarcastic joke combined with a High touch of ‘‘showing off’’ to impress someone else.
Now that you know more details: How can you make it clearer to the English viewers, without writing a lethany considered in English a run-on sentence? JOKING lol
Even though I know there is a Big possibility that not much can be done in the sentence since in the English language the won value in USA money is way lower, and if we translate into the English money value, the sentence will lose the real meaning from the dialogue of the Original Author/writer of the drama.
Maybe, I’m thinking too much?..
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Goo Baek, the name of the dog, and goo-baek (900 in Korean) are homonyms. I hope this helps.
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lol not really, but it’s okey. I know that some sentence/subtitles from Korean to English due to the complexity of the Korean language, at times are too complicated to understand, and hard to get a clear definition in the English language. You guys are amazing in your struggle to get it right most of the time, and that’s good enough for me. Thanks for your input.
PS. You’re saying Goo baek is 900, and I thought it was 900X10,000…omg!
@choitrio
I think the word [man] (not recognized in the GT as a Korean word/ was what steered me off the whole meaning in the translation). The fact that it can’t be shortened without losing its real meaning doesn’t help much either…Oh well, '‘you can’t win ‘em all’’ like the saying goes lol
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Cannon phone for 대포폰 is simply an incorrect translation.
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Just because I try not to say “incorrect” but you are absolutely right.
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