opportunity cost, Is it expense or sacrifice?

Status
Not open for further replies.

keannu

VIP Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2010
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Korean
Home Country
South Korea
Current Location
South Korea
In social studies, they have a term called "opportunity cost" as in the following, but in Korean it is translated as "opportunity budget(expense)", but I think it's like "opportunity sacrifice or loss", maybe they translated it wrong when they first introduced it to Korea just sticking to the basic meaning of "cost". I need your clear confirmation.

ex)When you choose an item among a number of options, the attractive features of the rejected items will decrease the satisfaction derived from the chosen item....Because we do not put rejected items out of our minds, we experience the disappoinment of having our satisfaction with decisions reduced by all the options we considered but did not choose. In light of these negative effects of opportunity cost, which is the cost of the opportunity you lost by making one choice instead of another....
 

Raymott

VIP Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2008
Member Type
Academic
Native Language
English
Home Country
Australia
Current Location
Australia
In social studies, they have a term called "opportunity cost" as in the following, but in Korean it is translated as "opportunity budget(expense)", but I think it's like "opportunity sacrifice or loss", maybe they translated it wrong when they first introduced it to Korea just sticking to the basic meaning of "cost". I need your clear confirmation.

ex)When you choose an item among a number of options, the attractive features of the rejected items will decrease the satisfaction derived from the chosen item....Because we do not put rejected items out of our minds, we experience the disappoinment of having our satisfaction with decisions reduced by all the options we considered but did not choose. In light of these negative effects of opportunity cost, which is the cost of the opportunity you lost by making one choice instead of another....
You understand what opportunity cost is. How it is translated into Korean is not really an English problem.
Opportunity cost is the cost of one choice in terms of what you have to sacrifice by not making other competing choices. A cost is both an expense for what you buy, and a sacrifice for what you can't buy with the same money.
 

SanMar

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 18, 2011
Member Type
Other
Native Language
English
Home Country
Canada
Current Location
Canada
In social studies, they have a term called "opportunity cost" as in the following, but in Korean it is translated as "opportunity budget(expense)", but I think it's like "opportunity sacrifice or loss", maybe they translated it wrong when they first introduced it to Korea just sticking to the basic meaning of "cost". I need your clear confirmation.

ex)When you choose an item among a number of options, the attractive features of the rejected items will decrease the satisfaction derived from the chosen item....Because we do not put rejected items out of our minds, we experience the disappoinment of having our satisfaction with decisions reduced by all the options we considered but did not choose. In light of these negative effects of opportunity cost, which is the cost of the opportunity you lost by making one choice instead of another....


Yes it sounds like they only used cost in terms of money.
This might help...
Opportunity cost - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not limited to monetary loss. It sounds more like a sacrifice rather than an expense according to the above link of course.

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/cost.html


Not a teacher.
:)
 
Last edited:

keannu

VIP Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2010
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Korean
Home Country
South Korea
Current Location
South Korea
You understand what opportunity cost is. How it is translated into Korean is not really an English problem.
Opportunity cost is the cost of one choice in terms of what you have to sacrifice by not making other competing choices. A cost is both an expense for what you buy, and a sacrifice for what you can't buy with the same money.
It definitely seems "sacrifice" not "expense", then in the underlined, it should be have the meaning of "sacrficing the opportunity you lost", but still it sounds "expense". It still sounds in both, dubious I mean.
ex)...which is the cost of the opportunity you lost by making one choice instead of another
 

abaka

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2009
Member Type
Other
Native Language
English
Home Country
Canada
Current Location
Canada
"Opportunity cost" is a precise economic concept, a scientific term, or even technical jargon.

Any discussion of what may or may not be an opportunity cost is a matter of economics, not English.

The term "opportunity cost" has precise equivalents in Korean and most other languages. The components of the equivalent phrase in Korean may or may not correspond to the English words "opportunity" and "cost", but that truly makes no difference.

Scientific terms should be learned and translated exactly as they are.

By the way, not only technical jargon may have equivalent overall meaning in two languages, though the components don't match.

For example, "telephone" is (from the Greek) "distant sound"; while the exact Japanese equivalent "denwa" is (from the Chinese) "lightning speech". Nevertheless, telephone = denwa, regardless that a distant sound is not lightning speech.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top