Asian Absolute Newsletter, Summer 2006

Of the 'CJK' trio of North-East Asian markets, South Korea is perhaps the least well known in the West. Its unique geographical position has resulted in a long history of domination by foreign powers. It sits infamously in the shadow of its reclusive 'other half' in the North, although for the past fifty years the two Koreas have been separated in every respect.

South Korea is an increasingly important market for commerce and technology alike, and in 2004 became one of the trillion dollar world economies. Despite widespread suffering during the financial crisis of the late 1990s, it has bounced back to being one of the key players in the global economy. South Korea’s exports centre around telecommunications, electronics, shipping, automobiles and petrochemicals, although over half of its GDP is generated from the service sector.

South Korea has one of the highest standards of living in Asia, as well as a very high level of literacy. Of a population of just under 50m, around 20% live in Seoul – one of the highest concentrations of people in a capital city in the world.

When it comes to localisation and marketing, as with the other East Asian markets, South Korea has its own unique features. The following are a few facts and fallacies:

FACT: The Korean script is one of the newest in the world, having been devised by a 14th century king to replace the previously used Chinese characters. Hangul are phonetic characters based on the shape of the mouth when each is being spoken. Although Chinese characters may still be seen in Korean text occasionally, Hangul are used throughout North and South Korea.

FALLACY: Korean is a single-byte character set, similar to European languages. Despite the simplicity of the alphabet, Hangul characters are double-byte on computer systems because each character is a syllable formed by a combination of one or more consonants and a vowel. Production of materials for print or online publication therefore involves similar processes to those used for Chinese and Japanese, and double-byte enabled software is required for most output options.

FACT: Korean is only used as an official language on the Korean peninsula. Including Koreans in the country and abroad, the language is spoken by 60 million people worldwide, but is not widely spoken anywhere outside of Korea.

FALLACY: Different languages are spoken in North and South Korea. While dialect and expressions differ quite considerably, people in the North and South use the same language and script.

For more information on Korean translations, click here.

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