Konglish Buster Errors abound on street signs
One of the signs near City Hall shows a mistake in a country’s official name: “El Salvador” is misspelled as “Embassy of El Salbador in Korea.” / Korea Times file
By Hong Dam-young, Lee Han-soo, Lee Jin-a
This third article in the “Konglish Buster” series focuses on street sign errors. Those included in this story were collected by Korea Times reporters and students of Gachon University.
Errors ranged from mere spelling mistakes to wrong translations. Information signs were the biggest source of errors.
A sign near City Hall station in central Seoul misspelled “Museum” as “Museuml” and “Gallery” as “Gallerly.” There were plenty of errors on other boards along the way.
An English sign for “Seoul Finance Center” was missing the letter “n” from “finance,” and an English sign for “Westin Chosun Hotel” was mismatched with “Hoam Art Hall”, which was, making it worse, misspelled as “HoaAVm Art Hall.”
An English sign for “Westin Chosun Hotel” is mismatched with “Hoam Art Hall”, which is, making it worse, misspelled as “HoaAVm Art Hall.” / Korea Times file
One of the signs, also near City Hall, even had a mistake in a country’s official name: “El Salvador” was misspelled as “Embassy of El Salbador in Korea.”
One of the pictures sent by Gachon University students showed an awkward translation for a “nursing room” as “Mom’s Lounge” at Jamsil Station. In the same context, a sign indicating “access information for the disabled” was wrongly translated to “Disabled Access Information” at Sangwangsimni Station, conveying a narrower context than its original one.
An English sign for “Seoul Finance Center” is missing the letter “n” from “finance.” / Korea Times file
Also in the picture, taken nearby at a ticket machine in Myeongdong Station, the busiest tourist spot in Seoul, the word “Confirm” on the instruction board was misspelled as “Comfirm.”
Reports of wrong English naming in public signs in Korea can be made to The Korea Times at pss@ktimes.com and ghdekadud@gmail.com or to Seoul City government at visitseoul@seoul.go.kr, with pictures and detailed information about locations.