If it’s written on a spreadsheet, you don’t have to memorize it, you can have it open and consult it when translating.
The difficult part is for the person making the spreadsheet, how to ascertain which speech style is used.
I can give you a few tips for Korean - for Chinese, maybe someone else can help.
Let’s first simplify by considering only three levels of formality:
CASUAL (banmal):
- For intimate friends (the ones you grew up with, typically)
- siblings of the same age or lower age - depending on families, sometimes even slightly older siblings.
- parents to their children
- everybody who’s older to children and teenagers (when they don’t know their name, they will typically address them as “haksaeng”, meaning “student”.) Sometimes middle-aged people may also address casually young adults.
- Boss to younger subordinate. If he’s very low-status, the boss may address him casually even if older than the boss.
- King to everybody
- Characters who are very angry and/or are physically fighting often drop formalities. For instance policemen with criminals. You can’t speak politely when saying things like “I’ll teach you a lesson, you #%@5!#!” or “I’ll be sure to send you to rot in prison, you #%@5!#!!”
POLITE:
(It is recognized by the ending -yo)
- For acquaintances and co-workers of roughly the same age group. They have to specifically discuss dropping the polite form in order to do it, it doesn’t just “happen”.
- For people in a flirting relationship and most of the time even when they have kissed or even went to bed together (as an Other Language moderator I don’t follow this. The moment they kiss and make their relationship official, I drop the formalities in my language).
- Married couples of an older generation (over 40) also use this. In “Encounter”, the couple dropped the polite address only on the very last minute of the last episode (and, very occasionally, in a couple of other instances, but only for one or two sentences). In Five Children, even after the couple gets married, she calls him by his office title instead of his given name, and they both use the polite form of speech.
- In many middle-aged couples, the woman will address her husband politely and he will address her casually. For instance in “Memory”.
- Children to parents usually use the polite form. My Korean teacher told me that some modern families have dropped this. HOWEVER, once the child is married, he or she starts using the polite form again, because that’s what their spouse will use (to give the good example?). Makes no sense, I know, but … whatever. Your choice if you will follow this in translating, because it sounds weird in our languages.
- In historical dramas, noblemen to commoners, as would be expected, and also King to everybody else.
FORMAL
It is recognized by the ending -mnida (and -mnikka in the interrogative mode)
- To elders like grandparents
- To bosses
- To complete strangers
- To the king and royals in historicals
General rule
Older-younger and Higher-lower in status are almost always followed.
But what about if someone is higher in status but lower in age and viceversa? We see this in office dramas, where the CEO is young and cold (because of daddy/mom problems and abduction trauma, not to mention a rare illness).
I have seen that most of the time (not always) status is more important than age. I mean that the boss sometimes speaks casually even to subordinates older than him. Or, if not casually, the subordinate will use formal and the boss polite, so the level difference between them will still be obvious.
Tip:
If you’re not sure, better play it safe and put formal. You can never go wrong with formal.
Tip:
If you hear someone referring to the other with the ending -nim (for instance hyeong-nim, sonsaeng-nim, seonbae-nim) then you MUST use the polite form.
Hope this helped.