Bodo to Korean: respect for an addressee can change how I is expressed
A respectful source you does not settle the Korean speaker form
Narzary’s Bodo pronoun paradigm distinguishes ordinary and honorific second-person forms, while its first-person singular entry is not divided into the same ordinary–honorific pair. That distribution matters when a speaker addresses somebody respectfully and then speaks about themself.
The Seoul National University chapter on Korean honorifics distinguishes 나, na, from humble 저, jeo, for first-person singular reference. These forms do not name different speakers: they position the same speaker differently in the interaction. A Bodo sentence can therefore identify the addressee through a respectful pronoun while leaving the translator to choose how the speaker’s own Korean reference fits that relationship.
Do not treat a dictionary you as an all-purpose courtesy word
The Korean chapter describes restrictions on 당신, dangsin, including uses between spouses and in impersonal advertising, alongside potentially uncomfortable or confrontational conversational uses. It also explains that a title or another appellation can replace a second-person pronoun. This is a different system from selecting the honorific cell in a Bodo pronoun table.
If a Bodo student’s question explicitly addresses a teacher, replacing the source honorific with dangsin merely because both are glossed you can distort the relationship. A suitable Korean title may preserve that address more naturally. The same title would not automatically suit a spouse’s question, even when the Bodo text uses a respectful form in both settings.
Repeating a kinship noun can preserve reference
Narzary includes distinct Bodo kinship terms for an elder brother and an elder sister. Those lexical identifications can establish a person more precisely than the gender-neutral third-person pronoun appearing later in the same source account.
The Korean chapter illustrates a narrative that repeatedly names an older sister instead of replacing every later mention with a third-person pronoun. For a Bodo story, retaining a suitable kinship expression can therefore be a legitimate target choice rather than unnecessary repetition. However, the source identification must support the Korean term selected; a later gender-neutral Bodo pronoun by itself does not identify which sibling is meant.
Plural people and a humble we are separate matters
Narzary’s Bodo account distinguishes singular and plural personal reference and separately records honorific forms. The Korean chapter gives 우리, uri, and 저희, jeohui, as contrasting first-person plural choices associated with speech level. Both can concern more than one participant; humility does not mean that the group has become smaller or larger.
In an original situation where several Bodo-speaking organizers announce that they are leaving a meeting, their source plural identifies the departing group. The Korean translation must still choose the group’s self-presentation toward those remaining. Carrying over the source count alone cannot resolve that interpersonal choice, just as adopting a humble target form cannot determine which organizers belong to the group. Keep the represented participants stable while reconstructing the speech relationship in Korean.
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