I’m writing this with a lukewarm Americano at my desk, a client-provided term glossary open, and a sticky note that says “생산 결과 = manufacturing output” attached to my monitor – my reminder that one mistranslated term can snowball through a 40-page slide deck.
After almost fifteen years of translating Korean for banks, biotechs, and bureaucrats, I’ve learned that the battlefield is littered with less-than-obvious land mines. Below are ten of the worst, each paired with a real-world snippet (lightly anonymized) of how I tip-toed past it. I’ll finish with a few broader lessons that apply no matter what languages you’re juggling.
Korean→English Pitfalls
| # | The Pitfall | Real-Life Tripwire | How I Dug Out |
| 1 | Vanishing Subjects | “향후 3년간 15% 성장 예상.” — No subject at all. | Find it upstream: “The company expects 15 % growth over the next three years.” |
| 2 | Honorific Gravity | “당행은 귀사께…” sounds grand; literal “[Our bank] to your esteemed company” feels archaic. | Fold respect into tone: “We appreciate your partnership and look forward to…” |
| 3 | Modifier Mountains | “친환경 고효율 폴리실리콘 원천기술 확보 계획”—twelve syllables, one noun. | Divide and conquer: “Our plan to secure proprietary, eco-friendly, high-efficiency polysilicon technology.” |
| 4 | Hanja Ghosts | “체결” (execute a contract) sounds grand in KR; bloated in EN. | Use the plain word unless it’s legal: “sign.” |
| 5 | Local Acronyms & Loan Words with Different Meanings | “IR,” “M/S,” “CS,” “KPI,” “서비스,” “핸들” | Always parenthesize the first instance, keep a termbase, never guess. |
| 6 | Culture-Locked Idioms | “호랑이 굴에 가야 호랑이 새끼를 잡는다” | Swap imagery, not meaning: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” |
| 7 | Numeric & Unit Drift | “연면적 3,200평” | Convert everything (in this case, to an area roughly equaling 10,000 m²) and adopt local date order: 2025-06-16 → June 16, 2025 or 16 June 2025. |
| 8 | Title Tangle | “부장,” “전무,” “사원.” | Describe rank and role: “Director-level (부장)”; avoid Mr. Manager/Ms. Director trap. |
| 9 | One-Sentence Novels | 20-word introductory clauses | Split ruthlessly while keeping logical scaffolding: cause → result. |
| 10 | Brand Drift | One client referred to itself as “Acme Bio,” “Acme Biologics,” and “아바” in a single slide deck. | Lock down one master version, police it like style-guide law. |
Pitfalls in the Wild
Korean source:
“협력업체와 긴밀히 소통하여 향후 2년간 디지털 전환 로드맵을 구체화할 예정이다.”
A literal translation might sound something along the lines of:
“Will concretize the digital conversion roadmap in the next two years by communicating closely with partner companies.”
The problems: ghost subject, future-intent nuance, stiff noun “concretize,” plus that classic “partner companies” redundancy. Here’s a polished final version:
“Over the next two years, we will work closely with our partners to flesh out a detailed roadmap for digital transformation.”
Shorter, sweeter, and more sublime. It’s all about hitting the right notes.
Tips For Translating Any Language Into English
- Purpose First. Ask, “What is this sentence trying to make the reader do or feel?” Translate that intention, not just the syntax.
- Density Equals Friction. English favors information front-loaded in short clauses. If a line makes you run out of breath, the reader will too.
- Termbases Are Your Friend. A living glossary cushions every project—no more backtracking two hours later to fix “지원,” a single term that morphed from “support” to “assistance” to “aid.”
What These Lessons Teach Us About Translation
Translation is an act of double empathy: first toward the writer’s mind, then toward the reader’s patience. It’s carpentry and jazz, all mixed up in one Word document. Three truths have followed me from my first freelance gig to today’s hundred-page sustainability report:
- Faithfulness ≠ Literalism. You owe the client meaning, not word order or word count.
- Clarity Is Kindness. Every extra comma is a cognitive tax the reader never asked to pay.
- Consistency Builds Trust. One wobbly term choice can shatter a brand faster than a typo.
Keep these tips in mind and even the most confusing Korean (or French or Farsi, for that matter) sentence can be coaxed into crisp English.
Daniel Svoboda is an Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Interpretation and Translation (GSIT) at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS), where he has been teaching since 2014. He works as a Korean–English translator and English editor, with experience ranging from annual reports and press releases for Korea’s largest corporations to speeches and presentations for international conferences—many of them delivered smoothly thanks to last-minute caffeine and quiet panic. He has edited documents for over a dozen Korean government agencies and more private firms than he cares to tally. These days, he also divides his time between developing Korean translation textbooks for the King Sejong Institute and raising four bilingual children, all of whom are already masters at code-switching.