Are you gentle? was the advertising slogan used for the Daewoo Gentra automobile in television and print ads in 2005 and 2006. The line was spoken by the Korean-American actor and model Daniel Henney. The word "gentle" is a play on the car's name, which, according to the car's Wikipedia entry, is a combination of the words "gentleman" and "transportation" [1].
Though it capitalized on one of the hottest personalities in Korea at the time, the ad campaign was met with mixed reviews. It is assumed that the word "gentle" was meant to imply "(a) gentleman," but, as one columnist writes, "the words “Gentra” and “gentle” may share the same first three letters, but the concepts of “gentle” and “well-mannered” are distinctively different" [2]. Moreover, like other examples of "Konglish advertising," this ad resulted in the misunderstanding and misuse of the word "gentle" by Korean EFL learners.
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