Korean Translations
Why is Korean an important language?
Large number of speakers
There are 77 million native Korean speakers. There are, in fact, more native Korean speakers than there are French. Being able to appeal to such a large cross section of the world’s population is certainly something that will set your business apart. Translations into Korean will therefore prove highly useful.
Economy
South Korea’s economy is underpinned by industries including electronics, automobiles, telecommunications, shipbuilding, chemicals, and steel. One of the world’s largest manufacturers of electronic goods, South Korea is home to the world-renowned Samsung Electronics. The South Korean economy has grown significantly in the last few years and is predicted to continue, becoming one of the world’s top eight economies by 2032.
Korean culture
There are many pillars of Korean culture which have been exported and enjoy international success. This includes Korean pop music (or K-pop), K-dramas, film and cuisine. The influence of Korean popular culture has created renewed interest in the country.
Is Korean a difficult language?
The alphabet
The Korean alphabet (or Hangul) might at first glance appear challenging for those who are used to the Latin alphabet. Pictorial in nature, the Korean alphabet consists of fourteen constants and ten vowels. In fact, Hangul encapsulates every human sound and is thus deemed to be the world’s most scientific alphabet.
Grammar
Korean grammar is considered to be simple and straightforward. Although verbs change slightly if you are speaking to someone to whom you must show some level of respect, verbs do not change according to gender and number. For instance, ‘I see’, ‘you see’, ‘he/she sees’ would all be conjugated in the same way. Forming the past, future and progressive verb tenses is also simple, involving adding a few endings to a word. One of the easiest aspects of Korean grammar is the fact that many verbs are formed by adding a noun to the verb ‘to do’. This means that as long as you know the noun, you will immediately know the verb as well. As you can see Korean translation can be complex, which is why you need to consider professional Korean translation services.
Vocabulary
In many cases, Korean vocabulary is made up of several compound words. For example, the word for ‘iceberg’ (bingsan) would literally be translated as ‘ice-mountain’, whereas volcano (hwasan) would be ‘fire-mountain). This allows you to expand your vocabulary effortlessly and guess new words even if you have not seen them before.