Sunday 28 October 2007

"Oh, I just turn it on and push the play button..."

I spent several hours today translating the various words on the input panel of my washing machine. I would refer to the words as representing "options" except that poking them did not seem to have any recognizable effect on outcome so for me most of the buttons are not options but taunts. Having now fed the hangeul into Babel fish and observed the results I can understand why it is just as well that I don't make use of the other buttons.

Before embarking on the translation project I spent a great deal of time trying to determine if the internet already held the answers I sought and found nothing. Now, given that there are thousands of expat English teachers here, I have to assume that somewhere on the web is a tool of use but I could not find it. I decided that I would forge new territory and be a hero to the weagooks[clip below] by creating a useful tutorial on operating the washer. Yes! I will contribute to the greater good while learning the language! I am awesome!

FAIL



Autodidaction is hard. I spent another few hours poking the image above in GIMP. "Weagook" explained:

2 comments:

Jason said...

The ethnic slur "gook" comes from "miguk." Americans during the Korean War saw little kids pointing and shouting "miguk!" American soldiers thought the kids were saying "me gook!" and the slur stuck.

Disorganizer MK 5 said...

So, clean or shredded? Cara and I follow your exploits with glee and sympathetic apprehension.