Brother, Am I Cute? [EN]: Chapter 25

After finishing his food, Siha stared longingly at the strawberry stand.

‘Bro’s, Siha’s, Uncle’s, Villain’s,’ he mumbled to himself.

Siha was counting his connections one by one, folding his little fingers.

It struck me how many people Siha had in his life now.

“Siha, what are you looking at?”

“Ah, Bro.”

Siha pointed to the packaged strawberries intended for Si Hyuk.

He flexed his tiny arm, pretending to show off his muscles.

“Stawbewwies.”

“Huh? Ah! Are you talking about Uncle Baek Dong-hwan? The really big, muscular uncle?”

“Ah ah.”

“Wow, Siha even thinks about his neighbors. Bro [older brother/close male friend] didn’t even think of it.”

Siha then pantomimed the next person.

He pretended to hold something in both hands and then tossed it down.

“Jelly toy? Ah! You want to get one for Dong-hwan hyung [older brother/close male friend] too?”

“Ah ah.”

“At this rate, we’ll have to buy all the strawberries here.”

“Ah ah.”

“Okay. Bro will buy as many as there are people.”

“Ah ah.”

Nod nod.

Siha felt good.

He was so happy that his brother understood him so well.

Communication with other people is a bit difficult, but his brother understands everything right away.

“Bro. Stawbewwies.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll get them. And it’s not ‘stawbewwies,’ it’s ‘strawberries.’ Okay? Repeat after me. Straw-ber-ries.”

“Stawbewwies.”

“Straw! Ber! Ries!”

Siha strained his eyes, concentrating hard.

Then he remembered what Seo Soo-hyun had said.

“Ttuwawies!”

“Gasp! They say a genius knows ten things from one lesson?! Is Siha a genius?!”

Seo Soo-hyun, who was standing behind us, commented, watching this exchange.

“We need to make him pronounce it correctly.”

“That’s not the point. He just said ‘Ttuwalgies.’ How are you going to take responsibility for *this*?”

“We can play the strawberry game.”

Siha felt a little left out when his brother started talking to Seo Soo-hyun instead of him.

So he gently pushed Seo Soo-hyun’s leg.

But it didn’t do any damage to Seo Soo-hyun.

“Huh? Siha, do you want to play with me?”

It was a huge misunderstanding.

Siha shook his head.

Seo Soo-hyun was already caught in the swamp of misunderstanding.

“If you wanted to play with me, you should have said so! Oppa [older brother/term of endearment for a male], I guess I’m the type that’s popular with kids.”

“Yeah, no. Put Siha down quickly.”

“You’re always hogging Siha. I want to play with Siha too.”

“Ah ah.”

Shake shake.

“He says no?”

“He’s just embarrassed to be held by such a pretty noona [older sister/term of endearment for a female], you don’t understand kids’ hearts.”

Siha pushed Seo Soo-hyun’s face with his palm.

“See? He’s even stroking my face.”

Slap slap.

It was definitely not stroking.

***

After returning from the farm, I distributed the strawberries to the neighbors.

Baek Dong-hwan received them and looked at Siha with a touched expression.

But Baek Dong-hwan’s expression was a little too intense.

Siha, unaware of Baek Dong-hwan’s overwhelming gratitude, hid behind my legs.

“Thank you so much.”

“Siha wanted to give them, so he personally picked them out.”

“Hyungnim [older brother/respectful term for a male], and Siha, thank you. I’ll cherish them. I’ll eat them all year round.”

“They’ll rot if you do that.”

After saying goodbye, we went inside.

Siha was blinking, looking tired.

‘He must be very tired.’

He played a lot in many ways.

He was excitedly chatting with Seung-joon and Hana on the way back.

“Bro. Nighty night.”

“Yeah, Siha. Let’s wash up and nighty night.”

I washed Siha and tucked him into bed.

He looked so innocent when he was sleeping; it was incredibly cute.

I hope the special strawberries we had today appear in Siha’s dreams.

Siha mumbled.

“Ttuwawies…….”

I’m going to have to slap Seo Soo-hyun’s mouth next time I see her.

I patted Siha’s stomach a few times and turned on my laptop.

“Hoo.”

This time, the translation project involves translating *into* English.

It was a martial arts novel in Korean, so I could fully understand the nuances and feelings.

But expressing it in English and bringing it to life was by no means easy.

It might be even more difficult than translating into Korean.

‘I have to do it.’

I placed my hands on the keyboard.

First of all, English doesn’t have particles [grammatical markers indicating a word’s role in a sentence].

Eun/neun/i/ga, eul/reul [Korean particles indicating subject and object].

In fact, very subtle differences arise when you see it in writing.

For example, the point of view.

[Mother ate rice.

Tears flowed.]

It means the mother shed tears.

But if you change the particle.

[Mother ate rice.

Tears flowed.]

It means *I* shed tears.

This subtle difference is the advantage of Korean.

To express this in English, it has a different feel and requires a longer sentence.

‘And Korean often omits the subject.’

In English, you have to clearly include the subject, like ‘I shed tears.’

The length of a sentence was the length of time.

The length of breath.

English and Korean, which require a subject in every sentence, are different.

I looked at the prologue of the martial arts novel.

‘The beginning is important.’

The narrative part is a flow that connects all the atmosphere and the contents of the book that will run through it in the future.

Of course, there are many books that focus on characters, but this martial arts novel has a very attractive narrative.

If I can’t bring this to life, the charm of this book will be cut in half.

‘This is Teacher Taek-soo’s signature style.’

I first wrote “prologue” at the top.

Then I started translating little by little.

The predicate is brought forward, and the object comes after.

The dialogue is short but intense.

I transform it to fit English, which prefers transitive verbs, and add the missing subject.

‘The dialogue should sound like a real native speaker is saying it.’

Strangely, the dialogue part felt easier.

Maybe it’s because my father was an interpreter that this ability shows more strength in that area.

Many people only read the dialogue and skip over it when reading quickly, so the translation I do might be more suitable.

I felt more confident for no reason and translated even faster.

“Hoo.”

When dawn came.

I stopped and spread out the bedding.

‘That’s it for today.’

15,000 characters translated.

At this rate, it wouldn’t take long to finish the first volume.

***

-Sunday morning.

I don’t go to school, but because Siha wakes up early, I still have to get up early.

Siha’s day was very different from before.

Before, he would drag tissues around and play ‘Scatter, tissues!’

But these days, he was engrossed in drawing on the LCD tablet.

It’s as regular as an office worker going to work.

“Siha, we’re going to have lunch at home with Uncle Baek Dong-hwan today.”

“Ah ah.”

“So I’m going to serve a nice meal; can Siha play alone?”

“Ah ah.”

I watched Siha drawing for a while.

He was drawing fan art again, but unlike before, he was putting clothes on them.

‘Those look like the clothes Siha wore?’

It seemed like he was dressing the emperor penguins in the clothes he had seen.

‘It’s like a dress-up game…….’

I left Siha, who was concentrating in the living room, and started cooking.

Today, I will present Siha with an amazing dish called spaghetti.

It’s not a difficult dish, but it’s the one I’m best at.

‘Bacon, noodles, cheese, tomato sauce.’

As I was diligently making it with the perfect ingredients, the doorbell rang.

Ding-dong.

I turned down the heat and put the lid on.

Now all I had to do was wait for the cheese to melt.

Click.

When I opened the door, Baek Dong-hwan greeted me.

“Hello.”

“Oh, come on in.”

“Is Siha home?”

“Yeah, he’s here. Sit down. The food is almost ready.”

“Yes.”

I cleaned the table and looked at the spaghetti.

It looks like it’s cooked very well.

I was preparing the plates when I heard Baek Dong-hwan’s surprised voice.

“Wow! Did Siha draw this?!”

“Ah ah.”

“Wow, that’s amazing! How did he draw it?”

“Hwi hwi.”

“He drew it with a pen, whoosh whoosh?”

I burst out laughing at that.

“You mean he drew it *quickly*!”

“Hyungnim! Siha’s drawing skills are extraordinary! For a baby to draw like this…….”

“It’s because Siha is a genius.”

“I think he’s really a genius…….”

I didn’t think I needed to hide it from Baek Dong-hwan.

However, I didn’t want it to become a topic of conversation, so I asked him.

“Please don’t tell other people. Well, it’s okay to tell them, but I don’t want it to be noisy and annoying.”

“If that happens, the broadcasting station will come looking for him.”

“That’s true.”

“I saw a foreign girl doing art on TV before. I wonder if he’s that kind of genius. They said the education there allows them to draw freely.”

“Neglect.”

“There’s no need to teach a genius the drawing rules of an ordinary person. Their talent might be ruined.”

“Hmm…….”

I think I know how that talent came about.

Should I consider my ability and Siha’s ability as talent?

If I had to accurately express what I felt about this ability, wouldn’t it be like this?

Inherited experience.

How to use this received experience is up to you.

‘But it doesn’t seem like he inherited *everything*.’

He definitely inherited the translation ability, but the interpretation ability was a bit ambiguous.

If he had inherited my father’s experience, he should be better at languages other than English…….

‘As far as I know, he was also good at French? I think he knew other foreign languages too…….’

I don’t know what my father was like as an interpreter.

I saw him when I was too young, and he chose to stay in Korea after separating from my mother when I was 5 years old.

Since then, he has walked the path of a translator.

Despite the difficult choice.

‘It’s very different…….’

Maybe most people think it’s similar.

The weapon that an interpreter has is clearly ‘words.’

The translator’s weapon is ‘writing.’

Just looking at this, the necessary skills are clearly different.

It’s good to have a wide range of relationships and be able to coordinate conversations to work as an interpreter.

Translators don’t need to have as many relationships as interpreters.

I now know how big this difference in lifestyle is.

‘It was a difficult decision he made.’

My father chose to raise me in Korea rather than raising me abroad.

Maybe it was because of my friendships or language issues.

At that time, my father did not teach me foreign languages.

‘I understand now. To be exact, I should say he *couldn’t*.’

Teaching two languages to children under the age of 4 requires systematic education.

If you do it wrong, both Korean and the second foreign language will have clumsy pronunciations.

‘If that happens, you’ll be made fun of wherever you go…….’

Now the internet has developed and information about it is known, but at that time, it contained such risks.

‘I want to teach Siha a foreign language too, but…….’

Siha still doesn’t speak Korean well enough to do that.

‘No. Maybe he’s *not* doing it?’

When I look at it, Siha confuses me.

I think it’s my fault.

The kid would speak if I didn’t understand…….

Looking at his face, I couldn’t pretend not to understand.

‘It’s a relief he’s going to daycare…….’

The language problem seemed to be getting better little by little as he went to daycare.

He actually showed signs of improvement.

“Okay, it’s done.”

I called the two of them.

Siha put down his pen and ran to me.

“Let’s eat spaghetti, Siha. Spaghetti. This is called spaghetti.”

In front of Siha’s eyes was a pile of cheese spread out like white snowflakes.

Siha was so excited that he sat on the chair and tapped the table.

“Dong-hwan, come and eat.”

“Oh! That’s amazing! Hyungnim, you could open a restaurant!”

“You haven’t even eaten it yet.”

We sat down and ate spaghetti.

I cut the spaghetti into small pieces so Siha could eat it well.

“Siha, the cheese is getting so long?”

Stretch!

Siha drooled as he watched the length of the cheese.

I wiped it off and blew on the spaghetti.

“It’s all cooled down. Let’s eat now. Ah~”

“Ah~”

Munch munch.

Siha ate deliciously.

“Mashi-sseo!” [delicious]

“It must be very delicious from the way you’re talking.”

“Hyungnim.”

I turned my head at Baek Dong-hwan’s call.

“Why?”

“About that painting.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve seen other paintings by Siha. It’s a very cute penguin.”

“Oh, really? You’ve seen other paintings?”

“Yes. It’s very cute and round. So, I was wondering.”

Baek Dong-hwan made a round shape with his fingers.

Why does that finger look muscular instead of round to me?

I guess it’s because of his size and the thickness of his hands.

Baek Dong-hwan said.

“How about submitting it as an emoticon?”

“Huh?”