Hi cueyayotl,
I see that the Chinese refers to "I" (wǒ) as well as all the European languages.
Your variant refers to "we".
Does the Korean refer to "we" (or maybe "I" and "we" are the same word in Korean)?
The Korean is completely "person-less". It can be 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person singular or plural.
Incredible. So how do they know who is intended in the sentence?
From the context. It's the same with Japanese.
Yes, I understand that. I intended to ask how the context helps you, if you can name one example :-)
One attempt at an example: Met Eldad yesterday. Wanted to know how the context can help understand sentences with no explicit subject. Came up with this example. ☺
While we assume the omitted subject is "I", there is really nothing preventing it from being "he/she", for example. It seems to me that even in the presence of context such sentences will occasionally have a double meaning.
Thank you very much, Lisa.
Actually, regarding Japanese, I thought there are pronouns, such as watashi wa, anata wa etc.
As for Korean, I thought that there should be really some particular hints in the context that allow you to link the verb to a certain pronoun. From what you described above, it seems that sentences are really open for personal interpretation, so each of us can see it differently.
I wonder whether Koreans don't suffer once in a while from misunderstanding ensuing from their special type of language. ☺
Koreans DO suffer once in a while from misunderstanding, resulting in the inevitable question, "Who?"
However, it IS usually understood by the context of previous sentences.
Quite interesting, even quite intriguing.
Thanks!