Translation into Korean
Korean is the language of approximately 45 million people in the Republic of Korea (South Korea), one of Asia's economic tigers. There are another 25 million users of the Korean language in North Korea. Moreover, there are thousands of Korean speakers in the United States and elsewhere across the globe.
With a view to strengthening Korea’s economic competitiveness, South Korea is pursuing a Northeast Asian business hub initiative with the aim of making Korea a logistics and regional financial hub in Northeast Asia.
This development is particularly noteworthy for future foreign partners wishing to tap into the region’s economic vitality.
Korean Hangul Script
Although most Koreans have studied English in school, Korean is used for most business and cultural activities. Therefore, translation is a requirement for any organization wanting to make inroads in Korea.
Modern Korean uses the Hangul script, which was invented in 1445 by King Sejong to replace the Chinese characters that scholars had used until then. Having just 10 vowels and 14 consonants, Hangul is so easy to learn that detractors referred to it as “Achimgeul” (morning letters), angered that common folk could master it in a single morning.
Despite the ease of use, it was not until the 1950s that Hangul replaced Chinese characters as the primary script in published works. Though it is near China and Japan, the Korean language has few similarities with Chinese and Japanese.
Korean is a member of the Altaic family of languages, which includes Manchu and Mongolian. There is, however, a significant trait the three languages have in common – as with Chinese and Japanese, translating Korean to and from English is a singular challenge. When compared with the European languages, all three of these Asian tongues pose greater difficulties linguistically and culturally, and accurate Korean translation is a challenge even for those who have been bilingual for their entire lives.