Road signs to be read in 4 tongues

A sign at an entrance to City Hall subway station. Information signs in Seoul will be written in Korean, English, Chinese and Japanese according to a local government official. / Courtesy of Seoul Metropolitan Government

By Kim Rahn

Some 140,000 road and information signs in Seoul will be written in four languages ― Korean, English, Chinese and Japanese ― for the convenience of foreign residents and tourists.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced a master plan Wednesday to upgrade its signs on roads, tourist attractions, subways and buses in order to standardize them and make them more foreign user-friendly.

“So far, most signs have been written only in Korean and English. Signposts have also been managed by different organizations, such as road signs by ward offices and subway line maps by subway operators. So sometimes the name of a place was written differently in English on signs managed by them,” a city official said.

In principle, all signs will have the four languages. For English, the city will put the meaning of the name in parentheses on the signs, such as Nam[san] (Mountain) or Han[gang] (River). Chinese signs will use simplified characters, while Japanese ones will use katakana.

This year, the city will upgrade some 80,000 signs in areas having a large numbers of foreign visitors, such as Insa-dong, Gwanghwamun and Garosu-gil, with tourist information signs and maps included.

Signs at other places will be gradually changed from 2014.

As the new system is applied only to signs managed by the city government but not to road signs managed by the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs, Seoul City has asked the ministry to accept the city’s style.

“The ministry has had its own plan to change road signs in 2014, so we asked them to consider adopting the city’s style. But even if they accept it, they said putting all four languages on road signs will be impossible because drivers won’t be able to read it easily,” the official said.

The four-language system will also be applied to subway line maps in subway trains and on the screen doors at platforms gradually by 2016.