Why official subtitles translate the way they do, what they choose to drop, and the constraints translators work under.
핸드폰, 아이쇼핑, 서비스, 스킨십: Korean is full of English-looking words that mean something else. Subtitles quietly translate them back into real English — and lose the joke when a character is showing off.
사투리 means regional dialect. Busan, Jeolla, Chungcheong and Jeju speech each carry a whole character type in Korean drama — and English subtitles almost always flatten them into the same neutral voice.
이 has no L, 박 has no R, and 김 starts somewhere between K and G. The usual spellings of Korean surnames come from older habits, and Korea’s official romanization was never applied to them — so Busan changed its spelling in 2000, and the Parks didn’t.
Korean has two everyday words for “I”: the plain 나 and the humble 저. Which one a character uses tells you who they think they’re talking to. In English subtitles, both are just “I.”
Korean has several ways to say goodnight, and they depend on who you’re talking to. 잘 자 to a friend, 안녕히 주무세요 to a grandparent. English subtitles turn them all into “Good night.”
Close Koreans call each other by given name plus 아/야. When a parent or partner switches to your full name, something is wrong. Subtitles print the same name and lose the alarm.
The sound fans spell “aish” is 아이씨 or 아씨: a frustrated mutter somewhere between a sigh and a curse. Whether it counts as swearing depends on who hears it.
Korean has two everyday polite styles: the crisp, formal -습니다 and the warm, polite -요. A character switching between them tells you a lot. Subtitles show neither.
Korean doesn’t only add polite endings. Some verbs and nouns swap out entirely when the subject is someone you respect. English has no equivalent, so subtitles can’t show it.
안녕 means both hello and goodbye. The polite goodbyes split in two depending on who is leaving — and English subtitles collapse both into “Bye.”
Korean leaves the subject out whenever context covers it. English cannot, so every subtitle contains a decision about who the sentence was about — and sometimes the vagueness was the point.
English has bang and crash. It has nothing for the family of words that describe the way a thing glitters, creeps or chews — which is most of a Korean variety caption.