Substantial: Subbers on Secret Love Affair and the craft of subbing

Subtitles are the key that allows international viewers entry into the world of Korean drama.

I didn’t fully understand this until my first rewatch of Coffee Prince. Before that, I blindly followed along with the words flashing across my screen without really critically evaluating them. Han Gyul and Eun Chan were fighting. What more did I need to know beyond that? 

But stumbling across fan-created subtitles for my favorite drama changed everything: The dialogue was constructed differently than it was in the official subs, and the word choices varied hugely. Even things that seemed simple had multiple layers—were the subtitles mostly complete sentences? Or were they full of stops and starts, like the way people actually talk? Were the characters eating ddukbokki or rice cakes? Was he hyung or Choi Han Gyul? Somebody made all those decisions, and each one had an incredible impact on my experience of the drama. 

Now I see that the labor of creating subtitles is nothing less than casting a magic spell. Language is more than just words; it’s an entire worldview that shapes how we see everything around us. And translating Korean into English is more than simply recording the things people say—it’s understanding the character’s essential meaning and capturing that meaning in words that weren’t necessarily created to express it.

Thanks to my current mania for Secret Love Affair, my appreciation for subtitles has become even more intense. I’ve been watching each episode on multiple streaming sites and comparing the translations. They often agree, but what’s really fascinating is where they deviate, and how easily those deviations can change the fundamental meaning of a scene. SLA is a great show for watching like this; it sometimes feels more like literature than a drama. The dialogue is meaningful, and always carefully constructed to allow multiple, ever-changing interpretations. 

Over the past ten episodes, I’ve come to trust the Viki subtitles for this show above all others. They get the basics right, but more importantly they really grasp the essence of each scene. I can’t judge their fidelity to Korean, but I can judge their fidelity to storytelling—and it’s amazing. (Don’t even get me started on the fact that Viki subbers are civilians like you and me, people who give of their time and knowledge for the love of dramas, not because it’s their job.)

In light of my recent fangirling over their work, I contacted a few members of Viki’s Secret Love Affair subbing team and asked if they’d answer a few of my burning questions about their experience of subbing in general, and SLA in particular.

Below the cut are interviews with two of these subbers—one who requested anonymity, and another who goes by the name anaisanais.

Tamra, the Island a fusion sageuk centered around the diving women of Jeju.
(And a castaway from England who can’t speak English.)

Anonymous subber

—How did you come to know both Korean and English?

I spent my early years in Korea before I moved to the U.S. to live permanently.

—How long have you been watching Korean dramas?

Ever since I can remember. I grew up watching a lot of Korean dramas.

—What’s your favorite drama? What do you like about it?

I would have to say Tamra, the Island. I know it’s not for everyone and I’ve seen people either being bored or being annoyed by the female lead character, but for me, it has just the right amount of angst, sweetness, romance, and humor that I look for in a drama. It’s also a very well-acted drama with gorgeous cinematography and awesome soundtrack. The male lead character is one of my all time favorite K-drama characters and I even loved a lot of the side characters. It is a fusion sageuk but incorporates the real Joseon history nicely into the drama and manages to deliver a message as well.

—What made you decide to work on subtitles?

My intense love for a not-much-known drama that aired last year got me started on subtitling.

—What do you think is the hardest part of subbing? The most fun?

The hardest part of subbing is when I want to come up with a perfect term or an expression that would thoroughly capture the meaning and nuances of the original language but I can’t due to my own limitations. The most fun part is being able to share the same emotions I experience when watching a certain scene or listening to a certain dialogue with people from all backgrounds.

—Between the time constraints and opinionated viewers, does subbing get stressful sometimes?

Sometimes, when there aren’t enough subbers and I don’t have much time, I feel bad for people waiting for the subtitles.

—When you’re watching dramas that you’re not working on, do you watch them without subtitles? Or do you turn them on, if only to see what other people are doing?

Sometimes I watch with subtitles, and sometimes I don’t. I do sometimes turn them on to see how certain lines are translated because I learn a lot by looking at other subbers’ renditions. If there’s a show I really like and I want to focus on the show itself, then I don’t turn them on.

—When you sub something, does it impact your enjoyment of the show? I know that writing recaps does—you’re always stopping and starting the video and thinking about things other than the story. Is subbing a thousand times worse?

It mostly adds to the enjoyment. It is fun subbing the shows I like, especially the ones full of witty dialogues.

—Do you have a subbing philosophy?

I try to be as literal as possible, to stay true to the original language as much as I could, which includes not making assumptions, and not sacrificing details.

—Have you ever worked on subtitles for a show you didn’t like that much? Have you ever fallen in love with a show you’re subbing?

Oh, yes, there were a few that I didn’t like too much for their dull, boring, and unintelligent dialogues and plotlines. I loved some of the shows I was subbing, but those are the ones I started subbing because I already liked them from the beginning.

—Lots of people edit Viki subs. Have you ever subtitled something and then realized someone revised it in a way you didn’t agree with?

Yes. I try to work it out with the editor when that happens.

—Is there anything specific you think speakers of English should keep in mind when they watch Kdramas?

Korean dialogues often consist of lines that are without a specific subject or an object. In those cases, subbers have to make assumptions.

To the Beautiful You; “The name’s lettuce. Nice to meet you.”

—There seems to be a lot of variety in the treatment of names in Korean dramas. Some subbers translate names, but others don’t. (In Secret Love Affair, some subs translate the screen names “ignorant ears” and “I’m a genius,” but others don’t. Another example is the dog in To the Beautiful You, which was called “lettuce” in some subs instead of “sangchu.”) Sometimes English-speakers lose out when a name isn’t translated because they don’t get the joke—but we also don’t want to sit through a drama starring some guy named Table Tennis, like Baker King Kim Tak Gu. Do you have a general strategy for this?

If the name’s meaningful, as in the case of “Ignorant Ears” and “I’m a genius” in SLA, I like to introduce the viewers to the name by putting the name as it sounds and add the meaning in parentheses—like “Makgui (Ignorant Ears)”—and then use the name only thereafter. But with Viki subs being a product of teamwork, different treatment of names are left as how the original subbers put in because we try to preserve the original subbers’ work as much as we could, which is why you sometimes see those variations.

—Did anyone keep a stylesheet of how people’s names were transliterated in the dramas you’ve subbed? There are different of ways to render specific Korean letters in English, which sometimes causes confusion. In the official Coffee Prince subs, for example, Eun Chan’s family name is given as both Ko and Go.

You know, the names (both first and last) that start with the pronunciation of “g” as in “go” are especially tricky. Sometimes it feels weird to use “g” instead of “k” and vice versa. Same with “u” and “oo,” “u” and “eo” variations as in “Sun Jae” versus “Seon Jae” or “Jun Hyung” versus. “Joon Hyeong.” There’s an editor’s note that a major contributing Viki editor created and I try to stick to it, although oftentimes I find myself having to deviate from it. There’s no right answer to this, really. Even Korean passports have different name variations. But we try to stick with one throughout a drama once we decided on something.

—Do you think there’s any drama that really can’t be appreciated without knowing Korean?

Yes. I think Hong sisters’ dramas are an example of this kind, unless the subtitles include thorough notes and explanations of how certain words are supposed to be funny, and so on. Also, I don’t think dramas with extensive use of saturi [a Korean dialect] like Answer me, 1994 can be fully appreciated without knowing Korean.

—Have you ever worked on subtitles for a sageuk? Are they especially demanding, because they use older words that aren’t in common use? Or is the dialogue mostly modern? I’ve heard that both Sungkyunkwan Scandal and Joseon X-files have particularly interesting sageuk language. What do you think?

Yes, I find them demanding for the very reasons you mentioned, especially with unfamiliar positions, title names and places. But the dialogues themselves aren’t too difficult in most sageuk dramas. I know a few (typically more experienced) subbers who don’t find sageuk dramas too challenging.

—How do you decide when something should be translated and when it should be left in its native language? I’m not crazy about subtitles that translate things like oppa, but seeing some of the lesser-known family terms without translations would confuse even me, the total drama-geek.

It depends, but as I try to stick to the editor’s note I mentioned earlier, terms like oppa, unnie, hyung, sunbae, etc. are left untranslated as most K-drama watchers are familiar with the terms. The less common terms are translated and maybe put inside a parenthesis.

—The levels of Korean speech can be a mystery to English-language viewers. In her Dramabeans post explaining banmal [casual speech], Girl Friday says that she squees about couples lowering their language just like she squees when they kiss. Does that seem on-target to you?

Surely, it does make a difference. I liked the few times when So Ji Sub used jondaemal (formal speech) to Gong Hyo Jin and the few times she used banmal to him in Master’s Sun. But I think it also seems to do a lot with power play within K-dramas, like people getting insulted when some stranger starts using banmal to them, and so on.

Secret Love Affair: It might have something to do with her being in love with another man.

—In Secret Love Affair, what levels of speech do Sun Jae and Hye Won use when talking to each other? How about Hye Won and her husband? Have there been any big moments of changing levels? For example, in episode 7 Hye Won’s husband asks her why she’s being so formal with him [20:18]. Has she inadvertently slipped into jondaemal with him? From what I can tell, Sun Jae is still speaking formally when he talks to Hye Won. Do you think they might ever reach a point in their relationship where they would speak banmal to each other? Or will their ages always make this impossible, no matter how much they’re in love?

Hye Won uses banmal to Sun Jae from the beginning and throughout the drama. Sun Jae always uses jondaemal except the time when he cautiously says “Hye Won ah” at the end of episode 8. Hye Won usually uses banmal with Joon Hyeong except (I guess) when she’s mad, like the time when he asks her why she’s using jondaemal to him, making him scared, or at formal settings. Same with Young Woo. Hye Won uses banmal with her during personal conversations but speaks in jondaemal to Young Woo at formal settings, whereas Young Woo always uses banmal to Hye Won. Also to note, Young Woo’s boyfriend always uses banmal with Young Woo.

I think it is possible for Hye Won and Sun Jae to use banmal to each other as they become more comfortable with each other, as in how a lot of kids use banmal when they talk to their moms even when they’re older, but I don’t know if it’s going to be in the same manner as the banmal used between partners of similar ages. Even if Sun Jae starts using banmal to Hye Won, I don’t think he will go far as to regularly call Hye Won by her first name. I think the age gap is too large for him to do that, but that could just be me talking.

—To me, the dialogue in Secret Love Affair seems really special and well constructed. Does it seem markedly different from the dialogue in other shows you’ve subbed? Do you have any favorite lines or scenes, when it comes to the language used?

Most shows (especially plot-driven ones) have pretty straightforward dialogue, but SLA is one of those shows with dialogue that is concise but you can tell a lot of pondering went into constructing it. One of my favorite lines is the ones between Hye Won and Sun Jae involving unbuckling Sun Jae’s pants during their practice session in episode 3, as you can see the different thoughts going through their heads and the conversation gives all kinds of colorful ideas to viewers at the same time. I also liked the dialogue between them at the bottom of the stairs at the beginning of episode 6, how Sun Jae says, “Why?” when Hye Won says there would be no more private meetings between them, and how Sun Jae asks Hye Won if she’s going to be okay since it’s dark and dangerous for her.

—I’ve been watching Secret Love Affair subbed by both Viki and another streaming source. There are little differences throughout the subs, which is understandable. I find one deviation really interesting, though. It’s during a conversation Hye Won and Sun Jae have in episode 9 when they’re cuddled up after being intimate [44:17].

Here’s the Viki translation:

Sun Jae: What are you thinking?

Hye Won: Habit.

Sun Jae: (You’re afraid) it will become a habit of mine?

Hye Won: No, mine.

And here’s the other source’s:

Sun Jae: What are you thinking?

Hye Won: Fling…

Sun Jae: (Are you afraid) that I will become one?

Hye Won: No, that I will.

Merriam-Webster defines habit as “a usual way of behaving: something that a person does often in a regular and repeated way.” Its definition for fling is “a brief sexual relationship.”

At least in English, these two snippets of dialogue read completely differently. In the first, Hye Won is saying she’s reluctant to become too involved with Sun Jae—she’s worried that being with him will become a habit. In the second, Hye Won seems to be concerned about the exact opposite: that she’ll be a “fling” to Sun Jae, rather than someone he’s in a long-term relationship with.

In Korean, does this make more sense? Could this word really be translated either way? To me, the Viki translation is much more logical—Hye Won isn’t a woman who’s so open with her emotions that she would make this kind of needy, slightly passive aggressive comment.

No, I don’t think it can be translated either way. “Habit” is the exact word she used. Fling seems like an over-stretch to me. It’s interesting how you brought this up because I mentioned this exact dialogue to another subber working in SLA a couple of days ago when we were discussing how we sometimes have to guess who the subject is when one is missing in a sentence and this is one of these cases where I had to do some guesswork (although this was more of a case of missing objects and the ambiguity of the manner it was said). Since you brought it up, here’s another possible translation of the dialogue due to the way Sun Jae said the third line:

Sun Jae: What are you thinking?

Hye Won: Habit.

Sun Jae: (You’re afraid) I will become a habit (to you)?

Hye Won: No, (I’m afraid) that I will (become a habit to you).

Those were two possible translations but I decided to go with the current translation in Viki as it seems to make more sense in terms of whom Hye Won was reflecting on. To me, it makes much more sense to think she was reflecting on herself and wondering what the relationship is going to mean for her than what it will mean for Sun Jae going forward.

***  ***  ***

Sungkyunkwan Scandal: Crack wishes it was this addictive.

anaisanais


—How did you come to know both Korean and English?
I was born in Seoul and grew up there until I was almost 10 years old. My family immigrated to a part of the United States where there were not a lot of other Asians, let alone Koreans, so it was easy to become fluent [in English] quickly. In exchange, I forgot nearly all of my Korean within a year. I couldn’t remember even the most basic words, for example, “refrigerator.” I started relearning Korean in college, pursued graduate studies in Korean culture, and even moved out to Los Angeles to regain my Korean fluency.

—How long have you been watching Korean dramas?
Whenever I came back home from college, my mom and I hunkered down in the family room, marathoning Korean dramas. I still remember some of the titles. The 1999–2000 Heo Jun (Hur Jun), starring Jun Kwang Ryul. 2002’s Rival starring Kim Min Jung. I watched Winter Sonata for my mom, oy. More like Winter Hibernation for me. Then, I caught a bunch of dramas on syndication—Tender Hearts, Emperor Wang Gun, To Be With You, Yellow Handkerchief, One Million Roses in the early 2000s. But it wasn’t until 2007 or 2008 that I started watching hardcore. My first crack drama? Sungkyunkwan Scandal. Yup, Yoo Ah In was 1/3 of it for me. (Not a Park Min Young fan, though I liked her well enough in that.)

—What are some of your favorite dramas? 


Coffee Prince
Queen In Hyun’s Man
Resurrection
Ruler of Your Own World
Sandglass
Sangdoo, Let’s Go to School
Shut Up, Flower Boy Band
Soulmate
Tree with Deep Roots
Time between Dog and Wolf

—What made you decide to work on subtitles?
To practice Korean.

—What do you think is the hardest part of subbing? The most fun?
One challenge is the difference between English and Korean syntax. They’re nearly opposite of one another. English is a language that privileges the subject, the subject’s actions, and the active voice. Korean, on the other hand, is one that downplays the subject and is quite at ease with the passive voice. Whereas English privileges verb phrases, Korean privileges noun phrases. In English, verbs come toward the beginning and in Korean, all the way at the end. Korean sentences also tend to be longer. All of this poses challenges subbing-wise. When a sentence spans multiple segments, it’s inherently impossible to match what’s being said since English won’t allow us to split the subject from its verb. In such an instance, the subbers/editors have to decide what to privilege in balancing out fidelity and comprehensibility.

I think the hardest thing for me is being unable to translate the levels of speech and the social relationships codified and conveyed in the use of honorifics. Imagine someone saying “please” in every single sentence to an elder or a higher-up. Or even every single time with a verb that pertains to an elder or a higher-up. Except, instead of sounding really servile or gratuitous, it sounds perfectly appropriate and necessary. Maybe even refined. And conversely, how the various levels/kinds of banmal can sound warm and affectionate versus curt and crude.

The most fun: Nailing a translation that captures a particularly challenging dialogue, both in letter and in spirit.

—Between the time constraints and opinionated viewers, does subbing get stressful sometimes?
Recently, Viki has instituted a lot of changes technologically that have mitigated some of this stress. If I understand correctly, the subtitle editor is now accessible only to the designated subbing team members. Before this change was implemented, the subbing teams often had to tackle two to three times the work trying to sort through rogue subbers’ contributions whilst managing the expectations of a really eager/impatient audience.

Cruel City: Now this is a real crack drama.
(In that its characters are involved in the drug trade.)

—When you’re watching dramas you’re not working on, do you watch them without subtitles? Or do you turn them on, if only to see what other people are doing?
I’m not 100 percent fluent in Korean yet. I can’t always understand everything when a dialogue is jargon-heavy, employs the latest slang, or is uttered by actors who don’t enunciate very clearly. So, it helps to watch the shows with the subtitles. I only find myself relying on them when I need them. For shows that are not on Viki, I watch them on another legal streaming site that doesn’t offer subtitles. That’s how I watched Cruel City (Heartless City), for example.

—When you sub something, does it impact your enjoyment of the show? I know that writing recaps does—you’re always stopping and starting the video and thinking about things other than the story. Is subbing a thousand times worse?
If possible, I try to watch the shows raw before I sub them. I did find that when I subbed first, I let some time ago before I sat myself down to watch the episode in its entirety.

I suspect subbing is a lot easier than recapping since there’s less analysis happening, or at least that’s true for me. I’m focused more on translating what’s in each segment. Also, I usually sub only about a 10-minute part, so I don’t know what’s happening in the remainder of the episode if I haven’t watched it already. I usually leave a note to the other subbers and editors to that effect and leave it to the editors to ensure episode-wide coherence.

—Do you have a subbing philosophy?
Yes, and I’ve thought long and hard about it. I want to be as faithful to the original language as possible without sacrificing comprehensibility. When I say faithful, I attempt to phrase the translation to reflect the original syntax and diction if that is possible in English. I oftentimes look up the Chinese etymology of Sino-Korean words to select the English word that most faithfully conveys that meaning, etymologically as well as connotatively. I would say that all of this does slow me down, so I can’t always adhere to this philosophy.

Currently, I’m translation editing a drama where I’ve received the go-ahead from the channel manager to do approximate translation edits. For this drama, I refrain from changing subs that get at the gist of the dialogue and only edit subs that are outright incorrect. Doing so saves time and my sanity. However, it’s not my preferred mode of operation.

The last drama I translation edited with great care was Two Weeks, and each episode took anywhere between 6 to 12 hours to edit.

—Have you ever worked on subtitles for a show you didn’t like that much? Have you ever fallen in love with a show you’re subbing?
There are some Viki veterans I really admire. If those veterans ask for my help, even if for a show I don’t love or even watch, I’ll get on board so long as my real life commitments aren’t prohibitive. I’ve yet to fall in love with a show because subbing has made it dear to me.

—Lots of people edit Viki subs. Have you ever subtitled something and then realized someone revised it in a way you didn’t agree with?
Of course! In the beginning, it took some practice to let go of the desire to revert the subs. Sometimes, I definitely did get huffy and reverted some of them if I found the changes slapdash. However, I do yield to the team editors in such matters. It’s their call whether to go with the last sub, first sub, whatever they deem the best sub, etc.
Viki is a great place to learn how to work as a part of a team. Some of the subbing teams are better managed than others, but overall, it’s a humbling and rewarding collaborative process. Some of the subbers are just so, so, so good, and some of the collaborations have been truly inspired. I think the My Love from the Stars team experienced such inspired moments regularly. Same thing with The Good Doctor team.

—Is there anything specific you think speakers of English should keep in mind when they watch Kdramas?
Even the best of translations are still approximations. I think a lot of non-Korean viewers are savvy and realize that they may be missing a lot culturally that’s embedded in the language. For example, many already know about the honorifics, as you do.

What they might not realize, however, is that the dialogue is oftentimes much more complex than the translated subs. As I mentioned earlier, due to the differences in syntax, pronoun usage, and so on, the subs are oftentimes simplified or truncated and do/can not convey some of the best word play in the original dialogue.

Angel Eyes: Who doesn’t love a guy who loves a joke at his own expense?

—There seems to be a lot of variety in the treatment of names in Korean dramas. Some subbers translate names, but others don’t. (In Secret Love Affair, some subs translate the screen names “ignorant ears” and “I’m a genius,” but others don’t. Another example is that the dog in To the Beautiful You was called “lettuce” in some subs, instead of sangchu.) Sometimes English-speakers lose out when a name isn’t translated because they don’t get the joke—but we also don’t want to sit through a drama starring some guy named Table Tennis, like Baker King Kim Tak Gu. Do you have a general strategy for this?

It’s obviously on a case-by-case basis, as you point out. I prefer to translate the “Ignorant Ears” Hyung since it’s a deliberately delicious word play. (Actually “Mak Gwi” literally means “stuffed/stopped ears” as in using fingers or earplugs to stuff/stop one’s ears. Such ears then can’t be very discriminating.)

Baker King Kim Tak Gu, not so since table tennis wasn’t all that relevant to the drama.

In Angel Eyes, the male protagonist’s name is Dong Ju but that first syllable is pronounced endearingly as Ddong, meaning “poo.” In his case, I vaguely recall that he exaggerated the “poo” pronunciation when he introduces himself to the heroine. In that segment, I might include a note in italics explaining that he’s deliberately trying to make himself seem down-to-earth with this particular pronunciation.

—Did anyone keep a stylesheet of how people’s names were transliterated in the dramas you’ve subbed? There are different of ways to render specific Korean letters in English, which sometimes causes confusion. In the official Coffee Prince subs, for example, Eun Chan’s family name is given as both Ko and Go.

The subbing teams don’t have full control over the Romanization of the Korean names, unfortunately. Sometimes, the Korean broadcasting channel or the show’s producers limit the subbers’ options by releasing their own Romanization that employs inconsistent Romanization systems.

As for Viki subbing teams, each team does maintain a Team Notes page that includes the Romanized spelling for each character as the team agreed upon. Not all subbers are mindful of it, however. The editors then try to catch any inconsistencies.

—Do you think there’s any drama that really can’t be appreciated without knowing Korean?

Nah. Hallyu exists because, despite language and cultural differences, there’s something in these dramas that resonates with people’s experiences all over the world. So, while there may be elements that cannot be appreciated fully, people all over ought to be able to enjoy them just as they enjoy good novels in translation.

My Love from Another Star: Who knew? It’s extra sageuky for emphasis.

—Have you ever worked on subtitles for a sageuk? Are they especially demanding, because they use older words that aren’t in common use? Or is the dialogue mostly modern? I’ve heard that both Sungkyunkwan Scandal and Joseon X-files have particularly interesting sageuk language. What do you think?

I have worked on a sageuk. A lot of sageuk dialogue has been modernized. Sungkyunkwan Scandal was a fusion sageuk, so the language wasn’t entirely sageuk-speak. Joseon X-Files, I can’t recall since I watched it so long ago. Even something like Empress Ki doesn’t employ sageuk speak all the time. It’s very modernized, almost to the point of being irritating and even insulting. If anything, My Love from the Stars played up the sageuk-speak in scenes set in Min Jun’s Joseon past, all to contrast very deliberately with scenes set in modernity. And even it wasn’t entirely devoid of modern anachronisms.

—How do you decide when something should be translated and when it should be left in its native language? I’m not crazy about subtitles that translate things like oppa, but seeing some of the lesser-known family terms without translations would confuse even me, the drama-geek.

I probably wouldn’t ever translate oppa, hyung, unni, noona, ahjumma, or ahjussi, mainly since their equivalents don’t exist in English. Although I can’t think of any off the top of my head, I wouldn’t translate a Korean word if its English equivalents didn’t have the same connotation. Instead, I’d use the Korean and include a note in italics. So, the litmus test seems to be whether or not there’s a cultural barrier.

—The levels of Korean speech can be a mystery to English-language viewers. In her Dramabeans post explaining banmal [casual speech], Girl Friday says that she squees about couples lowering their language just like she does when they kiss. Does that seem on-target to you?

Well, I probably squee less than Girl Friday does over lowering to banmal. Let’s take Secret Love Affair, for example. In episode 9, Hye Won teases Seon Jae that she can envision him daring to speak to her in banmal. If that were to happen, holy moly. I wouldn’t squee. I’d just be flabbergasted. I guess I’m old school that way. You can take the child out of Korea but can’t quite take the Korea out of the child, or something like that, right?

—To me, the dialogue in Secret Love Affair seems really special and well constructed. Does it seem markedly different from the dialogue in other shows you’ve subbed? Do you have any favorite lines or scenes, when it comes to the language used?

I can’t say that the dialogue is markedly different. It is better, more sophisticated, mainly because the story it tells and the character who utter the words are more complex. Rather than the drama’s use of verbal language, I’ve been more taken by its willingness to be absent of dialogue for very long stretches. Instead, those stretches are filled with music, diegetic or background. These stretches invite the viewers to breathe, deeply. To cherish. To allow some prelinguistic collective affect to reawaken. I really don’t mean to go all literary theory here, but that’s the best way I can put the feelings such stretches stir.

—In Secret Love Affair, what levels of speech do Sun Jae and Hye Won use when talking to each other? How about Hye Won and her husband? Have there been any big moments of changing levels? For example, in episode 7 Hye Won’s husband asks her why she’s being so formal with him [20:18]. Has she inadvertently slipped into jondaemal with him? From what I can tell, Sun Jae is still speaking formally when he talks to Hye Won. Do you think they might ever reach a point in their relationship where they would speak banmal to each other? Or will their ages always make this impossible, no matter how much they’re in love?

Seon Jae definitely uses the honorific. Hye Won banmal to Seon Jae. And she’s more often than not speaking in the imperative. She’s very intimidating.

Hye Won and her husband speak in banmal, but they actually talk. She’s not constantly issuing commands in the imperative to him.

In episode 7, she uses the jondae perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not so subconsciously. If I remember correctly (I’m definitely not scrutinizing the episodes the way you are, so I can’t be sure), that episode may have been the one that establishes that her home feels like work to Hye Won. If so, she went on auto-pilot in speaking in jondae, a very telling auto-pilot. Or she may have done so semi-intentionally, because that language is what she employs to placate (coddle) those who keep her around to cater to their whims.

Seon Jae employing banmal with Hye Won. 20 years is a lot. And he does respect her a lot. I’d be shocked if he could shake off 20 years of steeping in Neo-Confucianism and speak to her in banmal.

—I’ve been watching Secret Love Affair subbed by both Viki and another streaming source. There are little differences throughout the subs, which is understandable. There are some deviations I find really interesting, though. One of these occurs in episode 6 when Sun Jae is discussing his relationship with Oh Hye Won. Here’s the Viki translation:

Sun Jae: To you I am 100 percent sincere, so I don’t have to lie, is what I mean. I have nothing to be afraid of. Of course I’ll have to hide it from other people. To protect you.

And here’s the other source’s:

Sun Jae: I’m 100 percent serious about you. You don’t need to lie to me. I’ve got nothing to be scared of. Of course, I’d have to keep it a secret from others. So that I can protect you.

The two versions differ on exactly who doesn’t have to lie. I know that Korean sentences don’t always have clear subjects and objects, so sometimes require interpretation. Is this one of those cases?

Viki’s translation seems a lot more logical to me—Sun Jae is the subject of every adjacent sentence, so I would assume he’s the subject of this one as well.

Actually, when I first watched it before the subs were done, I thought Seon Jae was trying to tell her that she didn't need to lie to him since he was sincerely into her. It followed his calling her out on trying to come across as an adult and put distance between them. I thought he was trying to reassure her. That she did not need to lie or be afraid.

However, now that I watch it again, I realize he's saying that HE doesn't need to lie to her. The key to who needn't lie to whom is who doesn't need to be scared. It is he who says there's nothing for HIM to be afraid of.


All this begins with his assertion to her that he can do something well. She then asks him "Do what?" And he replies, “Not getting intimidated.” So, it is HE who need not be afraid, hence he who does not need not lie because he is 100 percent sincere about his feelings for her.

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And a final, chessily grateful note from Amanda: Thank you, Kdrama subbers, for sharing your wisdom with the international fans. We couldn’t be here without you!