They might change it, but even if they don’t, the spelling isn’t wrong. The syllable sounds like “Hee” but the characters used are a blend of “u” and “i”. But I agree with you - I like “Kim Hee Woo” more and that’s the spelling on most sites.
Like how “Choi” sounds like “Chwe”.
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The synopsis cannot be touched by volunteers, and it often has mistakes. Not only in transliterations, but what they say about the story is often wrong. It is given by the company, Viki says. And sometimes made before shooting, so the script might change in some instances for many reasons.
Now, about transliteration. It’s not a question of personal taste. Please read this Wikipedia article about R.R. (Revised Romanization) of Hangul. It’s the official romanization of South Korea since 2000.
Once upon a time, Viki adopted a romanization which made sense only to English speakers. U was transliterated as OO, whereas most other languages just read a double O. They used “U” for the wide O. And so on and so forth. In the same way as once upon a time the Indian sari was written as “saree” (you still see it sporadically)
We are not all English speakers, even if we read English subtitles. And it’s only right that Viki conforms to the official romanization of South Korea.
Reading the linked article, you may notice that for people’s names, they are strongly encouraged to change the romanization to the new one, but are allowed to keep the old if they are used to it. That’s why, in credits, we keep the names of actors the way they want them written. But there is no need to show such consideration towards fictional characters.
And of course R.R. should be used for all Korean words. So, not “unnie” but “eonni”, not “hyung” but “hyeong” and so on.
NOTE:
In surnames, we usually make an exception for the five most common ones, which have really been ingrained in people’s consciousness with the old transliteration:
Lee (normally I or Yi - which we use for the Joseon dynasty, though)
Park (normally Bak)
Kang (normally Gang)
Choi (normally Choe)
Kim (normally Gim)
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Just one of the examples of a synopsis which does not correspond to the actual story is the drama Tears in Heaven. Synopsis was published years ago, when we first thought the drama would air. However, the plot part where the heroine had a drunken one night stand with the hero seemed to be too much for the Chinese authorities, and they decided to butcher the series but cutting out all those scenes and shooting some new scenes to awkwardly patch things up. Needless to say, this particular endeavour caused a delay in publishing of about 2 years. It was first painful to wait for the drama. And then painful to watch it.
My question is, why is this wrong synopsis still standing unchanged?
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I have written to Viki many times about wrong synopses, and even for ones that give spoilers of the final twist. But they always say they cannot touch them as they have been given by the companies. Absurd!
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Absurd indeed!
Synopsis are the worst to rely on for anything when it comes to Viki. They’d need a team of staff members to work on both a show’s synopsis, and the profiles of celebrities.
A team of staff members
I suggest they do just that, and recruit from among fans here first!
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My ear hears Chae or Chay when someone named Choi is being addressed.
The slightly confused might want to grow “park chae” instead of “bok choy” in their summer garden.
(Giphy)
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Completely agree to it!! Sometimes the synopsis are so misleading… which makes me really mad! I think having a team of staff working on it…will really make a difference.
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Ha ha ha! They don’t even have enough staff to monitor comments & timed comments, reviews, discussions, tickets, ideas. They are only a couple of people for all that stuff, and you’re expecting a team just for the synopses!
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If we’re blaming people, then it should be the network first. Why do they write wrong synopses? Either you have to wait till the drama ends, or you have to just trust the network synopsis. To create a stir, they write in wrong or insignificant details, sometimes revealing spoilers, but that’s theur choice
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it is all a part of marketing.
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To dream the impossible dream . . .
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@irmar . . . do you think that the number of Viki paid staff (caught between the volunteer community and the Rakuten chaebols with the impossible job of making both happy), will ever increase in number?
The world-wide economy is pretty sucky at the moment, but Asian dramas are EVERYWHERE. Viki has done an incredible amount of shape-shifting since its days as a student-run program, and it does provide a little lunch money for the Rakuten chaebols’ kids.
Mikitani Hiroshi, Rakuten’s CEO, gets money from all kinds of income streams.
He comes across as an entrepreneurial innovator of some kind, and I’m sure he would love to beat the pants off of Netflix.
How hard could it be for a gazillionaire to do that? Not very hard, I’m thinking.
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Now, let me get out my crystal ball…
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So, now Viki is looking for QCs to do press interviews. Wow. Does this equal getting a t-shirt, or is it more in line with getting a free subscription?
Of course being part of the community is amazing, and there are clearly some subbers and segmenters who are geniuses. And there are a number of Viki paid employees who are very helpful. I think many people could testify to those things, and it would be easy to talk about the many amazing dramas that show up on the website.
But being a poster child for Viki? Why doesn’t Viki let the community vote on who that should be?
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