Squid Game: 10 Things Non-Korean Viewers Missed !!!

Squid Game by Netflix was released last month and has since grown in popularity internationally. The show is originally Korean, but is dubbed in English for international viewers. However, some viewers didn’t like the dubbing.

People who have Korean as their mother tongue are even mad at the dubbing artists. According to them, the dubbing artists did not take into account the emotions of the speakers, which is very important in any film or show. Aside from the fact that non-Korean viewers wouldn’t capture the speaker’s feelings, many of them don’t even understand some crucial aspects of the show.

Here we have rounded up a few things non-Korean viewers missed while watching the show in English. These things are important details that make this show more meaningful and fun to watch.

THINGS NON-KOREAN SPECTATORS HAVE NOT LOST

10. MIXED ACCENT OF KANG SAE-BYEOK

9. SOME COMEDY LOST IN THE DOUBLE GAME

Squid Game was a pretty dark series, but the show’s writers tried to balance this with some light humor. However, the linguistic gap made it difficult for the jokes to be perfect. For example, Sang-woo describes how he lost all his money and ended up playing games. He said he had invested in stocks for his future.

But the problem here is that the future in Korean is written as “선물” and called sunmool which, coincidentally, is also the pronunciation of “gift” in Korean. This caused some confusion in the minds as the phrase also means that he invested in a gift for his girlfriend and lost all the money. This is why Gi-Hun looked a little shocked when he thought Sangwoo had lost $ 6 million to a girl. A Redditor pointed out, nobasketball4me .

8. THE EXPLANATIONS OF THE GAMES WERE A LITTLE CONFUSED IN ENGLISH

If you were an English spectator, you may not have the full depth of every challenge in the game series. Many people like huazzy have shared that games have a lot more to it than just a few childhood games. A Korean TikTok user, Euijin Seo , explained that Red Light / Green Light is more complex than non-Koreans think. The game, known locally as mugunghwa kkochi pieot seumnida, which if loosely translated means “every time the flower blooms, you have to freeze”. There is this kind of difference that ruins the viewer’s experience.

7. THE CONTROVERSE MEANING OF “GGANBU”

Some mistakes in the translation process can be ignored but cannot when words start to lose their importance. In episode 6, Gganbu, Gi-Hun and the Elder bond together while playing a make or die game, the marbles. There, the old man refers to him as his Gganbu which the dubbing artist translates as an ally or a best friend.

6. CHANGES IN MI-NYEO DIALOGUES

5. CHARACTER NAMES HAVE A SPECIAL MEANING

4. A LUCKY DAY

Non-Korean viewers may know this phrase as the name of the show’s latest episode. But this has a deeper meaning than you think. One Lucky Day is actually the name of a Korean short story that is culturally very popular in Korea. As published by a Korean Redditor, One Lucky Day or 운수 좋은 날 is the story of a man who works very hard to feed his sick wife. But when he finally got home, he found his wife dead.

A similar thing happened with the protagonist as he went through 455 people to win money for his mother’s surgery, but found her dead when he returned home. This plot similarity was lost by many viewers who were unaware of the story.

3. COMPLETE LACK OF RESPECT FOR KOREAN CULTURE

Re: Honors, we always see Gi-hun use the most polite / formal speech when addressing Old Man (treating the elders with respect) but in the final scene where they get together, he drops it and switches to an informal / rude speech when he realizes the kind of monster the Old Man had always been. The way he poured the water and held it out with one hand also showed contempt. ” Not many viewers noticed this, and none of those who did were non-Korean.

2. THE DOUBLER ARTISTS COULD NOT CROSS THE CULTURAL BRIDGE

Korea is a country of rich culture that cannot be explained in a subtitle or footnote. Viewers can’t stop every few seconds just to fully understand what the director is trying to show in the scene. There were a lot of references and suggestions for the future of the show that non-Koreans didn’t get.

One of these was when Sang-woo was seen grieving in a bathtub. A Redditor, chained to life , he discovered that next to him was a tile on fire. Burnt tiles are a symbol of the act of suicide. According to the user, “Briquettes are a sign of poverty, because in the past Koreans did not have electricity… It is also commonly used for Koreans [togliersi la vita] because being in a space with fumes causes death “.

1. THE BAD Interpretation of the voice

So these were all the things non-Korean viewers missed on the show. Did you spot others who might be added to this list? Let us know in the comments.