Kim Rahn is the managing editor of The Korea Times. Since joining the company in 2003, she has covered various beats including the presidential office, Seoul city government, the Bank of Korea and the tourism industry. In 2014, she won the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) award for her coverage of the ordeals of migrant women in Korea.
English road signs will be made user-friendly
By Kim Rahn
By Kim Rahn
The road sign for “Hangangdaegyo,” which literally means the “grand bridge on the Han river,” will be changed to “Hangangdaegyo (Bridge),” according to Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG), Thursday.
This and other planned changes are intended to help foreign residents and tourists better understand road signs
by translating the Korean words.
“We’ve had complaints that signs written in foreign languages are improper and confusing, and foreigners can’t understand them,” a city official said.
“Now more than 10 million foreign tourists visit this country, and it is time for us to take more care of them and expatriates when designing traffic and information signs,” she said.
After consultation with experts, the city decided to put the meaning of the names on the signs and use full names instead of abbreviations.
Under this formula, Gyeongbokgung will be written as “Gyeongbokgung (Palace)” and Yeouido as “Yeouido (Island).”
For street names, Jongno 3-ga will be “Jongno 3 (sam)-ga (Road),” including the Korean pronunciation of the number.
Signs written in Chinese will use simplified characters instead of traditional ones.
For subway stations named after colleges, the city will put the full name of the institution and remove “ipgu,” meaning “entrance” which is often put when stations are located near colleges. For example, “Hongdaeipgu” station will be written as “Hongik University.”
Regarding use of Japanese, katakana will be used in principle, but proper nouns involving Chinese characters will use them as well.
However, the new system will be applied only to signs managed by the city government for now, not those supervised by the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs. When referencing bridges, the ministry’s current rule is to insert the abbreviation “Br” _ for example, “Hangangdaegyo (Br).”
“We are recommending that the ministry accept the SMG style to improve on its current signs,” the official said.
The city will collect opinions on its website from citizens regarding the changes up to Dec. 19 and before beginning to change signs in January.