Demolish, Collapse, and Damage

I recently assigned my students to translate short prompts about the floods in Pakistan and the Haiti earthquake this past January. Understandably, the prompts had many words related to 파괴/파손, and there were some common points of confusion.

1) Demolish
To demolish means to tear something down completely and deliberately. In other words, demolishing implies premeditation and complete destruction. It is a close equivalent of 무너뜨리다, 철거하다 in Korean. Take a look at the following example:

• For the fourth time in less than four weeks, Israeli forces demolished the unrecognized Bedouin village of Kafr al Arakib this week. A mix of international and Israeli volunteers return each week to help rebuild, even though Israel insists that the village was built illegally and therefore must be razed (NPR, September 5, 2010)

2) Collapse
To collapse means something falls down suddenly and abruptly, a close equivalent of 붕괴되다, 무너지다. Because the Korean words end with "~되다" or "~지다," a lot of people incorrectly use a passive voice construction (i.e. Something "is" collapsed) in English. Keep in mind that "to collapse," not "to be collapsed," is what you need for "to crumble."

• Relatives of 33 miners trapped underground in Chile have held a ceremony to mark one month since the mineshaft collapsed. They sounded horns and whistles as a flag for each miner was planted in the ground at the estimated time the cave-in happened on 5 August (BBC News, September 6, 2010)

3) Damage
To damage means to harm or injure a person or a property, 손상/파손시키다 in Korean. Something/someone damaged may be impaired and dysfunctional, but is by no means completely useless or destroyed. In other words, to damage and to destroy are not interchangeable.

• Three days after 72 migrants were found dead on a ranch near the Texas border, a local prosecutor involved in the investigation was reported missing on Friday and the office of a national television network in the region was damaged by an explosion, the authorities said (New York Times, August 27, 2010)

Uncountable Nouns: Evidence & Research

Evidence means something that is used to determine the truth of a claim. Since evidence in reality is more often than not a discrete and quantifiable object, such as a statement, document, or material object, many students understandably say "an evidence" or "evidences." However, evidence is not a countable noun in the English language. In other words, you should not put "an" before evidence, or pluralize the word. Take a look at the following examples:

• How much evidence does the government need before trying something new in the troubled realm of public education? Should there be airtight proof that a pioneering program works before we commit federal money to it — or is it sometimes worth investing in promising but unproven innovations? (New York Times Opinion, August 19, 2010): Notice how the author said "much evidence" instead of "many evidences."
• "We're announcing the discovery of two Saturn-size planets, which we're calling Kepler 9B and Kepler 9C," Holman said. And there's evidence of a third planet, he said — a much smaller one. Its diameter appears to be just 50 percent larger than Earth's. "If it is confirmed, it would have a radius of about 1.5 times the radius of Earth." Holman's discovery, in fact, is an early scientific harvest from NASA's new planet-finding machine — a telescope called Kepler. (NPR news, August 27, 2010): Note that the author said "there's evidence," not "there's an evidence"

The same rule applies to research. Although the word reminds people of a book or a report on a particular topic, making many people say "a research" or "researches," but this is incorrect. If you want to pluralize research or put an "a" before it, you should say "a study" or "studies" instead. Take a look at the following examples:

• U.S. scientists reacted with dismay to Monday's decision by a U.S. judge to halt any expansion of stem cell research using federal funds..."It's an enormous impact, and it hurts more now trying to stop the additional research that's been going on [since the Obama order]," said Paul Sanberg, a stem cell expert and director of the University of South Florida Center for Aging and Brain Repair in Tampa. "Fortunately," he added, "there's still a lot of research on non-embryonic stem cells that is showing a lot of promise and going into clinical trials." (Business Week, August 25, 2010): Notice how the author did not say "stem cell researches" to refer to the research as a whole. Also note that he did not say "there are still a lot of researches."
• Motor vehicle accidents don't just impact the people involved, they also impact the economy, to the tune of just under $100 billion for medical care and injury-related productivity losses in the United States each year, according to a study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday. (CNN, August 25, 2010): Unlike research, study is a countable noun. So you need "a" for a singular study.
  
• The governor can point to several studies that found little difference in binge drinking, alcohol-related fatalities or drunken-driving deaths between the 18 states that retain some control over the sale of alcohol and the other 32 states and the District, which do not. But McDonnell did not acknowledge other studies, completed by researchers across the country, that found public health differences between the two situations. (Washington Post, August 28, 2010): Again, study is a countable noun, so you can pluralize it with -es.
  

technology vs. technique

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the correct use of the word technology. Today's post is a continuation of a post I wrote on August 3, 2010.

Although technology and technique could both be translated as 기술 in Korean, they are not completely interchangeable in English. Technology means the application of scientific knowledge/method/tools, a close equivalent of 과학기술 in Korean. Take a look at the following example.

• Technology’s potential to bring about social good is widely extolled, but its failures, until now, have rarely been discussed by nonprofits who deploy it...“We are taking technology embedded with our values and our culture and embedding it in the developing world, which has very different values and cultures,” Soren Gigler, the World Bank specialist, told those at the FailFaire event here in July. Behind the events is a Manhattan-based nonprofit group, MobileActive, a network of people and organizations trying to improve the lives of the poor through technology. Its members hope light-hearted examinations of failures will turn into learning experiences — and prevent others from making the same mistakes. (New York Times, August 16, 2010)

Technique means a skill or command with which one handles a "particular" task, a close equivalent of 기법/기량 in Korean. For example:

• The prospect of a government attack on a popular estate-planning technique, referred to as a grantor retained annuity trust, or GRAT, has been a topic of much discussion among wealth advisors and tax professionals over the past several months. President Obama drew attention to the technique in his 2011 budget proposals, and provisions targeting "short-term" and "rolling GRAT" techniques have been included as revenue offsets in legislation passed by the House. (Forbes, August 18, 2010)

And/or in a negative sentence

A lot of students seem to be confused about whether to use "and" or "or" in a negative sentence. To make things clear, take a look at the following sentences.

• I like milk and coffee: This is an ambiguous sentence. It could mean that you like having the two together. But it could also mean that you like milk as well as coffee.
  
• I like milk or coffee: This is what you would say when asked "what do you like to drink in the morning?" You like both of them, but don't really care which one you have.
  
• I don't like milk and coffee: This means you don't like having the two together. But you may like having milk or coffee alone.
  
• I don't like milk or coffee: This means you don't like milk and you don't like coffee either.
  

The point is, when there are two or more items, and you want to negate all of them, you should use "or," NOT "and."

Last January vs. This Past January

Another very common point of confusion: last vs. past.

99% of my students translate "지난 something" automatically to "last something." But note that in the Korean language "지난" could simply mean "past (이미 지나간)," not "most recent (현재를 기준으로 가장 최근)," depending on the context. For example, if you say "지난 1월" in May 2010, you are referring to January 2010. You should say "작년/지난해 1월" for January 2009. But if you say "지난 1월" in January 2010, you are referring to January 2009.

In the 2005 Foreign Service Exam, students were asked to translate "올해 초 동북아시아 세 국가는 서로 협력적이고 우호적인 관계로 나아가기로 되어 있었다. 지난 1월 서울에서는...한일 우정의 해가 선포되었다." The formal announcement of the friendship year by the Korean and Japanese governments took place in January 2005. But a lot of students said:

• Earlier this year, the three Northeast Asian countries—Korea, Japan, and China—were expected to follow the path towards a cooperative and amiable relationship. The Korea-Japan Friendship Year was announced in Seoul in last January...

This is incorrect as "last January" here refers to January 2004. The correct answer is:

• Earlier this year, the three Northeast Asian countries—Korea, Japan, and China—were expected to follow the path towards a cooperative and amiable relationship. The Korea-Japan Friendship Year was announced in Seoul in January...

You could say "this past January" but it is already clear from "earlier this year" that you are talking about 2005. So it sounds a little redundant to say "this past."

For another example, take a look at the following excerpt from an August 2, 2010 New York Times Op-Ed.

• From the start, President Obama made clear that recovery from a crisis of this magnitude would not come quickly and that the recovery would not follow a straight line. We saw that this past spring (i.e. Spring 2010), when the European fiscal crisis posed a serious challenge to the markets and to business confidence, dampening investment and the rate of growth here...Panicked by the collapse in demand and financing and fearing a prolonged slump, the private sector cut payrolls and investment savagely. The rate of job loss worsened with time: by early last year (i.e. early 2009), 750,000 jobs vanished every month. The economic collapse drove tax revenue down, pushing the annual deficit up to $1.3 trillion by last January (i.e. January 2009)

In conclusion, think about when things actually happened before translating "지난" to "last."

과학기술

On July 20, I wrote a post about "infrastructure vs. social infrastructure." Today's post is along the same line. Often times, Korean students add unnecessary or awkward English words in their translation because they are so focused on translating every single Korean word into English.

A good example is 과학기술. When asked to translate "science and technology" into Korean, most students correctly say 과학기술. But when asked to translate 과학기술 into English, a lot of students say "scientific technology." This could sound awkward as you are not necessarily contrasting "scientific" and "unscientific" technology. The correct expression is "science and technology," or simply "technology." Take a look at the following example:

• China's focus on science and technology is relentless, and it's occurring at all levels of its society. Its labor pool is becoming increasingly sophisticated, its leadership is focused on innovation, and the country is adopting policies designed to pressure U.S. firms to transfer their technology. (Bloomberg Business Week, July 9, 2010)
  

surveillance vs. monitoring

On March 30, 2010, I wrote a post about the difference between government control and government regulation. Today's post is along the same line. Although both surveillance and monitoring can be translated as 감시 in Korean, they are used in very different contexts in English.

Surveillance means a watch kept over a person/group, especially those who are under suspicion, such as a suspect or prisoner. Take a look at the following example:

• Congressional Republicans and Democrats alike demanded answers from the Bush administration on Thursday about a report that the National Security Agency had collected records of millions of domestic phone calls, even as President Bush assured Americans that their privacy is "fiercely protected." ... Fifty-two members of Congress asked the president to name a special counsel to investigate the N.S.A.'s domestic surveillance programs (New York Times, May 12, 2006)

Monitoring means overseeing/regulating/observing/detecting something by checking it continually and keeping track of it. Take a look at the following:

• Autonomy, the UK search specialist, has launched a product that monitors what is being said on internet social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. Autonomy argues that as social media come to affect more businesses, they need to spot potentially compromising blog posts, tweets or online comments. (Financial Times, June 16, 2010)
• Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told survivors in the central Indian city that he will head a panel set up to monitor the government's effort to decontaminate the site, which activists say has polluted the groundwater in the neighborhood and led to chronic ailments (Washington Post, July 9, 2010)
  

But note that surveillance in the field of public health may have nothing to do with suspicion. It means a type of observational study that involves continuous monitoring of disease occurrence within a population.

• Surveillance is systematic ongoing collection, collation and analysis of data and the timely dissemination of information to those who need to know so that action can be taken. Tobacco control surveillance includes prevalence of tobacco use, its health and economic consequences, its socio-cultural determinants and tobacco control policy responses and tobacco industry activities. (Excerpt from WHO, Tobacco Free Initiative)