- Joined
- Jun 3, 2008
But when she is in America, she prefers to be called Ro Laren.....I mean YuNa Kim.
LOL!!!
Maybe she should skate to StarTrek soundtrack then!
But when she is in America, she prefers to be called Ro Laren.....I mean YuNa Kim.
Having said that, I wonder why Yu-Na Kim is to be singled out? They sure don't call the Japanese skaters "Ando Miki" or "Asada Mao." What is this inconsistency?
Having said that, I wonder why Yu-Na Kim is to be singled out? They sure don't call the Japanese skaters "Ando Miki" or "Asada Mao." What is this inconsistency?
Ever since NBC took over US skating coverage, they've called her "Kim Yuna". ESPN/ABC called her Yuna Kim, her ISU name is displayed as Yuna Kim, even her twitter name is Yuna Kim. So I assume she's ok with (and even embraces) being referred to by the Western convention of Yuna Kim. So, not sure why NBC insists on going with Kim Yuna. I think it will only confuse viewers...
Maybe they are showing respect to Yu-Na?
NBC Sports has, for many years, called all Korean and Chinese athletes by surname first. It would be far more confusing if they called some athletes from these countries by surname first, and others by surname last.
Maybe this has already been posted but it would appear Yu Na prefers Yu Na Kim in the West
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/olympics_blog/2009/03/no-matter-how-y.html
Her first name is spelled in two Hanguls (연아). The first one represents "yeon," the second "a." However, due to a phonetic convention of the Korean language, the "n" in "yeon" is connected with the "a," making it sound like "yeona" together. The Hangul represented by "eo" actually sounds pretty close to the English short "o".As for Yeon-Ah vs Yu-Na issue, I understand her.
The change to "Kim Yu-na(family name first)" is based on east-asian romanizing traditions rather than individual preference. (Yu-na herself doesn't seem to care much about how her name is represented.) In most east-asian countries, the family name goes first even when they write the names in English, and since this is considered "politically correct"(from the Cultural Relativism POV) and "practical"(since it helps you to communicate with the local population better; imagine the confusion when a city named after Ho Chi-Minh is spelled Chi-Minh Ho in English.), official governmental documents and academic papers generally follow this rule. Japan is an exception; they seem to prefer putting their given name first in English despite the fact that their Japanese names also follow the east asian tradition. Take for example, Mao Zhedong(Chinese), Shen Xue/Zhao Hongbo(Chinese), Ho Chi-minh(Vietnamese), Ban Ki-moon(Korean), in every case the family name comes first(China's Lu Chen is an exception to this rule, but I think her case was rather a happening of a Chinese gaining international spotlight for the first time - quite similar to Yu-na's case.), while in the case of Japanese names e.g. Yukio Hatoyama, Akira Kurosawa, Yasunari Kawabata, etc, it's generally represented in the western order(given name-family name). Of course, Asian immigrants in western countries or some special places like Hong Kong tend to follow the western tradition so their names are spelled differently(a la Michelle Kwan, Jackie Chan). The problem is, many asians themselves don't strictly follow this rule so that leads to a lot of confusion. However, the "Given name-Family name" order is considered to be the official way of representing names in many east asian countries, especially in China and Korea. (Even in the case of Japanese names, in many cases they are spelled in the traditional asian order when it comes to academic papers.) So the change to "Kim Yu-na" by the US media is actually a fix to what they were doing wrong. (It's not like they were doing something terribly wrong though; most Koreans including me don't mind it at all, although I do think correcting this will reduce a lot of potential confusions like "Why is Kim Jong-il spelled this way and Yu-na Kim that way?")
My English is pretty poor so I hope I didn't cause any misunderstandings. Hope this clears things up.
"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." William shakespeare
The most of the cases when US media goes on surname-first basis are when they refer to Asian presidents or U.N. personnels (i.e. when the matter is diplomatic and it's not appropriate to follow one country's custom but not the other.)
However, I can't remember the case in which athletes are called in this way. I'd prefer if they just call her Yu-na Kim.
First of all, I don't think your English is poor at all. I totally understand what you're saying.
My personal opinion is that the local convention should be respected. By local, I mean the place where the event occurs, the article is written and read, etc. For instance, the local announcements made in the Cup of China should address everyone, including the Europeans, in the Chinese manner; Weir Johnny, for instance. On the other hand, the U.S. media broadcasting the event in the U.S. should follow the English rule. What do you think?
Not really. I did a google search on a few well-known Korean names, and this is what I got(the family name is written in capitals):
(Korean Sports Stars)
PARK Ji-sung - 982,000 hits : (mainly European-based) Soccer player
Ji-sung PARK - 325,000 hits
PARK Se-ri - 58,100 hits : Golfer
Se-ri PARK - 32,900 hits
PARK Chan-ho - 49,800 hits : Major League baseball player
Chan-ho PARK - 578,000 hits
CHOO Shin-soo - 28,500 hits : Major League baseball player
Shin-soo CHOO - 182,000 hits
PARK Tae-hwan - 35,200 hits : Swimmer
Tae-hwan PARK - 5,140 hits
(lol.. I've just realized that if you want to become a Korean international sports star, your surname has to be PARK)
Finally, let's take a look at how Korean names are represented in Encyclopedia Britannica:
YI Sun Shin
YI Seung Man
KIM Dae Jung
Thanks!
While I agree with your point about respecting the local convention, I don't think what you've suggested will be very good, since the name of the same person will change every time thus leading to a lot of inconsistancy.