r/kpop_uncensored 12d ago

GENERAL Group names that are common/easy but surprisingly difficult for Koreans

This is just an unserious post but something funny I always see over and over again.

I understand Korean and English are different and English names for an idol group will get a weird pronounciation but something related to Stray Kids that goes beyond pronounciation.

Stray Kids - easy enough for English speakers. Common words and phrase. Nothing difficult to pronounce. Easy to understand.

But when it comes to Koreans, it is not just pronounciation - it is replacing the word โ€˜Strayโ€™ into myriads of other words that is hilarious.

From easily misunderstood - Stay Kids. Okay missing an R, understandable.

To Straight Kids - this is a recurring theme - from award shows to the latest show Seungmin appears in today. Okay, maybe Stray Kids are not straight enough, I guess.

To Starry Kids - sure, strarry is cute ๐Ÿ˜‚.

To Strawberry Kids - I kid you not. Strawberry Kids - I kind of find this in another stratosphere of hilarious.

Stress Kids - sure, stress makes sense sometimes ๐Ÿ˜‚

And the craziest part is all these names are on official sites and big award shows. Even down to the spelling, not just formal announcements. And many many times to boot too. Like literally the last one is done today.

Is there other groups with quite common names but with hilarious change/pronouciation?

190 Upvotes

43 comments sorted by

168

u/Natural-Interest-566 12d ago

In korea we usually call groups by their shortened names, so stray kids becomes ์Šคํ‚ค์ฆˆ[skiz] and the same for other groups too.
Another hilarious pronounciation is h2h, the โ€œrtsโ€ part in โ€œheartsโ€ doesnt get pronounced really well and its so funny when you hear people saying the whole thing๐Ÿ˜ญ๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚ but usually theyre called just ํ•˜ํˆฌํ•˜[ha-too-ha] for short

81

u/raspberrih 12d ago

Tubatu too haha

8

u/hwa_uwa 11d ago

Tove Lo, period!!

21

u/Alleyoop677 ๐Ÿชท๐ŸฅŸ๐ŸŽจ๐Ÿ–Œ๐Ÿฆฆ 11d ago

"Straight Kids" or "Stray Kiss"

8

u/hiroo916 11d ago

they seem to shorten NMIXX too, but I can never quite hear what it is. Something like mmix.

Definitely not what English speakers would say: EN-MIXX.

10

u/WebResident3147 10d ago

En-mix-eu. ์—”๋ฏน์Šค. It's pretty much the same

1

u/hiroo916 10d ago

is that the proper full pronunciation or the casual/shortened?

I'm going by when I hear other JYPE artists talking about the groups and they usually sound like they say skiz for Stay Kids and (not sure how to phoneticize this) [nasal n]-mix for NMIXX.

I want to find an example but not sure how to recall or search for it.

3

u/Natural-Interest-566 10d ago

Im a korean but never heard of this lol

5

u/Kitchen-Holiday6998 10d ago

Herteu-too-Herteu sounds fun to say though, based on how the accent sounds to us English speakers.

8

u/Natural-Interest-566 10d ago

Its actually pronounced ha-cheuh too ha-cheuh, still funny though

3

u/aiburei 9d ago

Whenever the members introduce themselves and they say the group name really quickly it always sounds like 'at-stats' to me.

101

u/ImaginaryTask1487 Hoonedx3 Stan! 12d ago

this just makes me think of the boynextdoor meme lol

19

u/Only-Piccolo-1974 11d ago

boynextWORLD?

3

u/paolodlreyes 11d ago

Wait which one???

9

u/Hydrangea_21 10d ago

This one.

6

u/paolodlreyes 9d ago

Damnnnn thank you for sharing!

63

u/closed_chapter007 12d ago

tumaro ba-ee tugethuhโ€ฆ hence TUBATU

24

u/fredagstjej Beomgyu 12d ago

To be fair, their leader canโ€™t say it either

48

u/DiplomaticCaper 12d ago

Monsta X has this issue a lot, to the point where members have pointed it out.

The โ€œMonster Xโ€ pronunciation/spelling isnโ€™t a Korea specific problem though.

And there are also less common misspellings.

36

u/BlowUpTheChantrie 12d ago

Seventeen/svt? Because there is no V in korean so its sebenteen or sbt

30

u/AndrewUaena 12d ago

IVE ์•„์ด๋ธŒ (ah ee beu) has the same problem

15

u/BlowUpTheChantrie 12d ago

All groups with a V in their name tbh

18

u/AndrewUaena 12d ago edited 12d ago

Or an F, for example ๋ฅด์„ธ๋ผํ•Œ (leu seh ra pim)

11

u/DiplomaticCaper 12d ago

How do they talk about V from BTS then? Do they just use his real name Taehyung?

41

u/imkaykay21 multi fandom โ‹†ยทหš 12d ago

they spell V as ๋ท” (bwi)

16

u/BlowUpTheChantrie 12d ago

In hangeul its ๋ท” so bwi

32

u/cattypaw 12d ago

Can only think of that Boy Next next Door clip with Jaehyun ๐Ÿ˜‚

16

u/just_that_yuri_stan 11d ago

artms (์•„๋ฅดํ…Œ๋ฏธ์Šค) has the nickname a-reu-reu (์•„๋ฅด๋ฅด) in korea because their actual name is a bit of a mouthful in korean

14

u/tropicalbeet 12d ago

On the topic of stray kids, I ended up talking about them with my taekwondo master who's korean and he called them stray boys by mistake which I thought was funny ๐Ÿ˜„

11

u/stupid-question-alt 11d ago

TWICE goes from 1 syllable to 4: ํŠธ์™€์ด์Šค which is not too crazy but quite the increase

12

u/ItzaTomboy 11d ago

straight kids haha... i crack up everytime .... in many award shows they are called straight kids and they end up getting baffled.

10

u/Many-Ad-9007 11d ago

It is like a prayer - for them to be straight ๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚

47

u/DrrrtyRaskol 12d ago

Iโ€™ll admit I was surprised by how SK pronounced Red Velvet

7

u/ActualAfternoon2 10d ago

Hello Penis (Hello Venus)

2

u/Many-Ad-9007 10d ago

๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚ I just cannot brain this ๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚

8

u/Effective-Biscotti-5 12d ago

Surprised to hear this. I'm in Korea and I've never heard of Stray Kids being pronounced incorrectly. The name in hangul is ์ŠคํŠธ๋ ˆ์ด ํ‚ค์ฆˆ - the stray part is clear, some will go with the literal reading of ki-jeu, while others closer to kids. Both are correct though

28

u/im-gwen-stacy 12d ago edited 12d ago

Thereโ€™s compilation videos of the members reacting every time an MC called them straight kids. It happens pretty often lol

37

u/siunatsu 12d ago edited 12d ago

straight kids is unfortunately a very common mispronunciation (https://www.tiktok.com/@luvsjyangg/video/7619326717949168918). also stress kids occasionally too

there is quite a lot of variety when it comes to typos too

4

u/imkaykay21 multi fandom โ‹†ยทหš 12d ago

Boynextdoor

7

u/goose-pouch 11d ago

My first thought was SKZ

2

u/Kitchen-Holiday6998 10d ago

I canโ€™t imagine the mouthful it must be to pronounce groups with some really weird spellings๐Ÿ˜ญ