Name of city o bridge

[elle271079]

Who can help me? I need translate this word. Maybe you know which the place is it?

[chrix]

this is Korean. Can you provide that picture of the sign in better resolution, the script is hard to make out....

EDIT: I took the structure on the first picture for a church... Well, the pictures *are* of bad quality...

Edited November 15, 2009 at 06:11 PM by chrix

[msittig]

It's very similar in style to the propaganda signs seen on the hills on the north side of the DMZ in Korea.

EDIT: after searching and searching, it appears they may be a thing of the past? On Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/haksaeng/4080192564/

[taylor04]

Its not the same sign, the second character at the very least is different. I asked my Korean friend, she said its a sign that has to do with North Korea. I assume it has a very bad meaning in Korean, my friend kept skipping around the topic of what it meant and eventually outright ignored me on msn.

[taylor04]

I finally got an answer out of my friend, said she wasnt 100% clear because of the picture, but probably means this, 향도성따르자, if someone know Korean we can solve this!

[skylee]

I don't know much about korean.

But here is a Japanese blog titled "38度線非武装地帯ツアー" (Tour to DMC at 38 degree) with the same picture. The blog says, "「향도성따르자」北側の風景だと思うんですが、そこに書いてある文字の意味がわからず気になって気になってしょうがありません(苦笑)", roughly meaning that the writer thinks that the phrase means "the view/landscape of the north" but is not sure why it is written there, I think.

PS - more from the same blog - http://kazumaro.cocolog-nifty.com/corean/2007/04/38_fc55.html

Looks like the first 3 syllables 향도성 means 嚮導星 and the phrase translates to "follow the leading star" (嚮導星に従え in Japanese). And the leading star refers to North Korean leader 金正日 Kim Jong Il.

嚮導星というのは金正日総書記を紹介するときに使用する枕詞のようです。

と言うわけであの写真は「嚮導星に従え！」が正解のようです。

Edited November 17, 2009 at 02:25 PM by skylee

[chrix]

No, that's not what he's saying. He's saying that the photo shows the view on the North, but he doesn't know the meaning of the what's written at all, which is vexing him quite a bit.

Well, my Korean has become quite rusty, I can see that it's some kind of verb form, I'd need to hit the books to make sure, but it seems the OP is gone, so I don't think it would be worth the effort...

EDIT: I was on to the same thing, hehe. BTW 嚮導星 is Japanese people citing Korean hanja, the character 嚮 is no longer used in Japanese, it has been replaced by 向, and the word in question is not really used in Japanese anyhow. So this all reflects Korean usage...

[gato]

Google Translate says 따르자 means "Rider".

Does that mean the phrase means “Kim Jong Il Rider"?

[chrix]

ok for gato it's worth hitting the books

따르-다 "ttareu-ta" means "to follow"

-자 "ja" is a verb ending akin to the Japanese -（よ）う, so it means something like "let's"

so 따르-자 "ttareu-ja" means "let's follow". Word order is the same as in Japanese, so the sentence means "Let's follow the Great Leader"

I think Korean might not yet be one of Google translate's fortes...

[skylee]

I googled "ttareuja" (따르자) and found this, which shows that it is the hortative form of the verb 따르다 (ttareuda), meaning "to follow".

[gato]

Ah, mystery solved. My first guess was 金正日万岁, which is pretty close.

[skylee]

My first guess was 金正日万岁, which is pretty close.

Great.

[chrix]

My first guess was 金正日万岁, which is pretty close.

As a bonus, here's how you say it in Korean:

김정일 만세! (Kim Jeong-il mansey!)

Good thing I still had a Korean IME installed on my system, you never know when it might come in handy

Edited November 17, 2009 at 03:34 PM by chrix