An esteemed Korean friend posted on Facebook a photo of an early spring scene with a comment which Facebook automatically translated into English for me, which I’ll get back to in a moment. His original is:
따스한 햇볕 잠자던 생명의 겨드랑이를 툭 치니 우후죽순처럼 일어나 춤을 춘다.
I can pick words out of that, but the whole sentence is way beyond me. If you know more Korean than I do, have a go.
Facebook’s automatic translation is:
Warm Sun sleeping with the armpit of life, wake up like a uhujugsoon and dance.
which gives the general idea, but is obviously not exact. The two most problematic parts are armpit of life (생명의 겨드랑이) and uhujugsoon (우후죽순).
I tried Google Translate, which suggested:
After hitting the armpit of the life that had been sleeping in the warm sunlight, he got up like a bamboo shoot and danced.
We’ve still got the armpit of life, but at least now we’ve got a bamboo shoot.
Bing Translated suggested:
After hitting the armpit of the life that had been sleeping in the warm sunlight, he got up like a bamboo shoot and danced.
I was previously unaware of Papago, but it appeared when I searched for Naver translate. (Naver has a dictionary, but apparently not a translator.) It suggested:
When I hit the armpit of life in the warm sun, I get up and dance like a bamboo shoot.
(Note that Facebook’s version doesn’t have a subject, Google and Bing have he and Papago has I.)
I asked my friend how he would translate it for me as a foreigner. He first quoted Google:
Really Spring season makes all lifes dance like woosh bamboo.shoots
which is a) a different result than I got and b) not very good English.
He then provided another translation (he didn’t say where from – possibly his own), which is:
A bright sunny day awakens life back where upon dancing bamboo shoots blast into new life after a refreshing spring shower.
우후죽순 by itself is bamboo shoot (Google), Woofu Bamboo Soon (Bing) and a rush of bamboo shoots (Papago). 생명의 겨드랑이 really is the armpit of life. When I asked him if it was a common expression in Korean, he replied “It is not common expression but sort of metaphysical word in Korean poem”.
Not surprisingly, the only instances of the armpit of life I could find are negative:
And an image which states:
Saturday nights alone at home are the armpit of life – they stink.
If I had to find a positive equivalent for the armpit of life, using a body part, I would suggest the bosom of life or perhaps the womb of life (both more formal/poetic words).
I don’t pretend to know how machine translation works, but I know it depends on a equivalent dataset in both languages. Papago’s translation seems to be the most accurate. It is, at least, the closest to idiomatic English.
I assume that my friend’s sentence is perfect poetic Korean. Machine translators obviously has great difficulty with poetry. (Compare 18th century German religious/devotional poetry.)
Never Pure and Rarely Simple 