Korean Building Names Awkward ... For Koreans

An Article from The Chosun Ilbo attempts to explain why so many Korean apartment buildings use English words as their names. Unfortunately for Koreans, the explanation just makes them all sound really ridiculous.

From the article:

'The preference for foreign names became prevalent after 2000. In early 2000, Samsung was the first to begin selling apartments under the name "Raemian." This led to other broken English names by the builder, including the premium "Tower Palace" and "Tra-Palace." Then property developers like Daelim, Kumho and Lotte featured apartments under names like "Acrovista," "Richensia" and "Castle." Studies showed that by 2005, 47.8 percent of new apartments had foreign brand names. Apartment brand names using Hangeul or the Korean alphabet, which were popular during the construction of satellite cities around Seoul in the 1990s, were no longer favored.'

Notice how the author of the article described the names as "broken English." That's a pretty accurate description of every day life in Korea. For a country that strives to be on the forefront of English education, they either do a poor job of it or are simply lazy in the words and phrases they use.

A Korean Language and Literature professor thinks that the English names are used to flatter Koreans. Maybe I'm wrong, but if I feel stupid, I don't see it as flattery.

He says:

'"The preference for foreign names is a typical advertising gimmick to flatter consumers," said Chae Wan, a professor of Korean Language and Literature at Dongduk Women's University. "Eloquent-sounding foreign names are used to get potential buyers to feel like they should know such words, since they are well educated," Chae wrote in a thesis.'

Just a little taste of some of the oddities of daily Korean life. Check out the full story here.