Why Koreans translate so strangely

I met one of my friends after dinner once (in Korea), and he was visibly upset. He said “There was seaweed in my porridge!” you might think that this is a culinary travesty like jam in fried egg sandwiches, but this time it wasn’t. It was the result of mistranslation

What my friend had, had absolutely nothing to do with porridge. It was something closer to risotto called 죽juk. Rice cooked a long time, served with savoury flavourings like kimchi or octopus or seaweed. But all Koreans call 죽juk “porridge”. You actually see it written outside 죽juk restaurants

The same goes with 찌개jjigg-ae. Much to the disappointment of new arrivals when they look at a menu, they see this translated as stew. Suddenly potatoes and tender meat in a thick sauce come to mind. You couldn’t be further from the truth. This is soup, plain and simple, albeit delicious.

Of course there are cultural reasons as to why all Koreans categorise these foods like this (I have to admit, I once saw 찌개jjig-ae called soup), but that’s for another time. This is pure conjecture, but I believe that these terms were coined pre-50s.

Porridge is not exactly a commonly eaten food, and to be honest, I am the only person who has such happy feelings when I think about stew. These are both foods of the past, which have been replaced by fancy things like "cereals" and "tagine".
I think that these words entered Korean when, either, the Americans occupied the South in the 1950s, or it could have taken place even earlier with the first missionaries. The Korean language has adopted these words so much that when you say (even in English) “찌개jjig-ae is not stew” no one believes you!

Korean doesnt just create Korean, and it doesn't just create Konglish, it even creates English. These odd translations remain to this day cemented in the Korean language, and will continue to confuse foreigners long into the future.