Basque to Korean: the listener and the person being discussed need separate politeness decisions
Who hears the message, and who does it describe?
A Basque message about a visiting professor can be addressed to a close friend, a colleague, or the professor herself. These are different conversations even when the reported event stays the same. When translating into Korean, identify both the recipient of the message and the person whose action or situation it describes before choosing the tone.
Laka describes hi as a singular addressee pronoun used in family or friendship settings in varieties that have it. Zu is available across varieties and covers contexts where hi is inappropriate. That information concerns the person addressed. A familiar relationship with that person does not establish the speaker’s relationship with everyone mentioned in the message.
Using Korean distinguishes hearer-related sentence endings from the subject honorific suffix -시. Its examples show that a casual ending can coexist with honorification of a professor being discussed. Conversely, a polite ending addressed to a professor need not honorify a younger sibling who is the subject. These are separate choices rather than one switch for the whole sentence.
A university visit creates two different conversations
Imagine an organiser privately telling a close friend that a guest professor has arrived at the lecture hall. The friend is the listener; the professor is the arriving person. This original planning scenario calls for preserving the friendly relationship without treating the guest as another intimate friend. The translation should not flatten both relationships into one undifferentiated casual voice.
Now imagine the organiser informing the guest professor that a student assistant has brought the projector. The listener has changed, and so has the person performing the action. A courteous message to the guest does not automatically give the assistant the same honorific treatment. The equipment delivery remains the same practical fact regardless of how respectfully the guest is addressed.
A third message asks the guest directly whether she has reached the hall. Here the listener and the person described coincide. Before translating, distinguish that direct question from a question to the friend about the guest. Replacing a name with you changes the conversation, not merely the number of words.
Keep quotations and event announcements distinct
A forwarded conversation introduces another boundary. If an organiser quotes what a friend said, the quoted sentence retains its own speaker and intended listener. An accompanying explanation to the guest belongs to a different exchange. Keeping the quotation visibly separate helps prevent the guest from appearing to receive an intimate remark originally meant for somebody else.
Do not extend the subject distinction into an absolute rule for every request. The Korean guide also describes deferential -시 in commands, including situations where that person would not normally receive subject honorification in a statement. Requests and reports therefore deserve separate attention, even within one event-planning message.
For this pair, useful context is concrete: who is receiving the message, who is arriving or delivering something, and whether the words are a report, a direct question, or a request. Supply those facts when they are known. Avoid inventing ages, job ranks, or personal closeness merely to make an otherwise ambiguous source sound more definite.
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