부천을 넘어 대한민국 1등과 겨루자!!
The above text is displayed on a banner (in bold white letters, on a blue background) at the language institute at which I work. It is displayed in the main lobby area, as well as above the white-board of many classrooms.
The city in which I live and work is Bucheon. "Bucheon is the Best in Korea" is what I'd always guessed that slogan meant, which is wrong. (I recognized three of the five words. My Korean skill is not good enough to understand it fully). This kind of bragging is not uncharacteristic for Korea. The city itself uses these kinds of self-promoting slogans. Anyway, this translation is definitely wrong.
Thursday, I had a class of one, a very low-level 9th grade girl. Seeing the banner again, I decided to solve the mystery once and for all. I asked her. Aided by the limited efforts of this 9th grader, my first real translation effort was this: "Beyond Korea's Best Competition is Bucheon". This sounds awkward, so I knew I hadn't gotten it yet.
My second effort was "Beyond Bucheon, Korea's Best Level of Competition". There should be an implied [We have] inserted, as in "Beyond Bucheon, [Our Language-Institute has] Korea's Best Level of Compeition". This seems like needless boasting, I thought, although I was satisfied with the translation. Again, this kind of 'boasting' is not uncommon here. (This language-institute has had a reputation for 'poaching' elite students from elsewhere, and offering them highly-discounted tuition, so the claim is true: Many top students are certainly here).
I was still unsatisfied with the translation, though. What was I missing?
Finally, a Korean friend told me: The last word carries a "let's". The best translation (rearranging word-order) may be:
The city in which I live and work is Bucheon. "Bucheon is the Best in Korea" is what I'd always guessed that slogan meant, which is wrong. (I recognized three of the five words. My Korean skill is not good enough to understand it fully). This kind of bragging is not uncharacteristic for Korea. The city itself uses these kinds of self-promoting slogans. Anyway, this translation is definitely wrong.
Thursday, I had a class of one, a very low-level 9th grade girl. Seeing the banner again, I decided to solve the mystery once and for all. I asked her. Aided by the limited efforts of this 9th grader, my first real translation effort was this: "Beyond Korea's Best Competition is Bucheon". This sounds awkward, so I knew I hadn't gotten it yet.
My second effort was "Beyond Bucheon, Korea's Best Level of Competition". There should be an implied [We have] inserted, as in "Beyond Bucheon, [Our Language-Institute has] Korea's Best Level of Compeition". This seems like needless boasting, I thought, although I was satisfied with the translation. Again, this kind of 'boasting' is not uncommon here. (This language-institute has had a reputation for 'poaching' elite students from elsewhere, and offering them highly-discounted tuition, so the claim is true: Many top students are certainly here).
I was still unsatisfied with the translation, though. What was I missing?
Finally, a Korean friend told me: The last word carries a "let's". The best translation (rearranging word-order) may be:
Beyond Bucheon: Let's Compete With Korea's Best Students!!
This is a much more positive attitude than the crude bragging of my original translations. The message is: "Don't just aim for being a big fish in a small pond [Bucheon, a single city], but aim to be a big fish in a big lake [all of Korea]".
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