Korean Translation Tip: This Week’s Episode of “Steven’s Believe It or Not!”

I want introduce you to another language quirk in Korean that affects some of our Korean translation [EXPIRED LINK REMOVED: https://uz9.25e.myftpupload.com/] projects, especially websites.

Koreans rarely write the words “Copyright” or “All rights reserved” in Korean in the footer of a website.

It seems odd, no? But if you don’t believe me (or just want to see what I mean), check these major Korean sites out:

Isn’t this crazy? Everything else on the site is in Korean, but these two phrases are left in English!

I’m afraid my team has gotten pretty beat up over this issue over the years and we are now trained on Korean business translation [EXPIRED LINK REMOVED: https://uz9.25e.myftpupload.com/korean-business-translation/] projects to translate everything into Korean. This is because Western clients don’t like seeing few words left in English after they’ve paid for a Korean translation of everything.

BestPractices Tip – You are actually providing a more authentic Korean translation by leaving “Copyright” and “All rights reserved” in English on a Korean website than by translating them!

Bonus Tip – Koreans do this in their books too! Check this out:

  8-8-2012 4-47-28 AM

Steven Bammel

Steven S. Bammel is president and chief translator/consultant at Korean Consulting & Translation Service, Inc. A graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington (B.B.A. Economics) and Hanyang University (M.S. Management Strategy), Steven has worked for over twenty years in Korean business and translation. | more about Steven

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