Korean Translation and Localisation: What Makes It Different

The verb comes last

Korean puts the verb at the end. Where English says I eat an apple, Korean orders it I apple eat:

나는 사과를 먹어요 (naneun sagwareul meogeoyo), literally I (나는) apple (사과를) eat (먹어요).

Those small tags, 는 and 를, are particles. The first marks the topic, the second marks the object, and because they show what each word is doing, the order can move around for emphasis while the verb holds its place at the end. On a short line that is a tidy reversal. On a long sentence full of clauses, the whole thing is reassembled rather than carried across in sequence.

It counts in two number systems

Two sets of numbers run alongside each other, each with its own job.

• Sino-Korean, from Chinese: 일, 이, 삼 (il, i, sam). Used for money, dates, addresses, phone numbers, minutes, and anything from one hundred upward. Fifteen thousand won is 만오천 원 (man-o-cheon won), or ten-thousand, five-thousand, won.
• Native Korean: 하나, 둘, 셋 (hana, dul, set). Used for people, objects, age and the hour, up to ninety-nine. Twenty-five years old is 스물다섯 살 (seumul-daseot sal).

Choose the wrong set and a Korean reader spots it at once. Two further quirks make it more interesting:

• Numbers group in ten-thousands, not thousands, so fifty thousand is 오만 (o-man), five ten-thousands.
• You seldom count a noun without a counter word, and the counter changes with the thing being counted: 명 (myeong) for people, 마리 (mari) for animals, 개 (gae) for general objects. Two cats is 고양이 두 마리 (goyangi du mari), where 둘 shortens to 두 in front of the counter.

A space can change the meaning

In Korean, spacing carries sense, because particles sit flush against the word they belong to. The well-known example says it best:

아버지가 방에 들어가신다 (abeojiga bang-e deureogasinda), Father goes into the room. 아버지 가방에 들어가신다 (abeoji gabang-e deureogasinda), Father goes into the bag.

One space moves, and a father walking into a room ends up climbing into a bag. Machine tools handle the common patterns and grow less reliable at the edges, which is one reason a final read by a Korean speaker matters.

Korean leaves a lot unsaid

Korean is a high-context language: subjects and pronouns fall away whenever the meaning is clear without them.

어디 가? (eodi ga?), literally where go?, with the you simply understood.

Working into Korean, you judge what can be left out. Coming back into English, you put back what was never written down. This is the point where literal machine output drifts into vagueness, or fills the gap with a guess.

Formality is built into the grammar

Korean carries politeness in its verbs and word choices, so the same question can shift register entirely:

먹었어? (meogeosseo?), a casual did you eat? 먹었어요? (meogeosseoyo?), the everyday polite form. 식사하셨어요? (siksahasyeosseoyo?), a deferential have you dined?

The right choice depends on who is speaking to whom. For anything customer-facing, it sets the tone of the whole piece.

Where AI fits

AI can lend a hand with a first draft, particularly for marketing copy. It supports the people doing the work rather than replacing them. Left alone it will reach for the wrong number system, gloss over what should stay unsaid, miss the formality an audience expects, or let a stray space change the meaning of a line. Those are the slips a person has to catch. So at Brightlines the work goes to a native Korean linguist to edit, and then to a second to proofread, since one pass seldom catches everything. The judgement, and the final checks, come from people. The tool only makes a start.

In short

Get Korean right and it reads as though it was written in Korean from the outset, which is what separates localisation from translation alone. If you have an English to Korean project in mind, we would be happy to have a chat!