Korean translator

We deliver South Korean (ko-KR, the Seoul standard) by default — the global business norm and NIKL-regulated. North Korean (ko-KP, the Pyongyang dialect) is available on request for historical, academic or journalistic contexts. We confirm the variant in the quote based on your target market. The gap between the Seoul and Pyongyang standards is the most common reason a Korean translation reads as out of place, so we hold to one variant throughout.

The UK has no sworn-translator institute, so there is no "sworn translator" as a legal office here. For official acceptance we provide certified translation: a signed and dated statement of accuracy from the translator or the agency, with our contact details. Where a body asks for more, this can be escalated to notarisation by a solicitor or notary public, or to an apostille or legalisation through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). South Korea has been a party to the Hague Apostille Convention since 2007, so an apostille is usually the route for recognition in Korea. We confirm in the quote which level your receiving authority requires.

Our Korean translators match verb endings and forms of address to the hierarchy between writer and reader. For contracts, business correspondence and formal documents we use the respect form your Korean reader expects; the wrong level reads as disrespectful and undermines the relationship. We confirm the intended register per project so the tone is right before the work begins.

Common document types include supply and M&A contracts, technical specifications (semiconductor, automotive, shipbuilding), patents, K-beauty product dossiers, subtitling and personal documents such as birth certificates and diplomas. UK-specific cases we handle often are Home Office and UKVI immigration documents, university admissions assessed by UK ENIC, HMCTS court documents and Companies House extracts. We confirm the approach and any certification per document in the quote.

On working days you receive a quote within 1 hour. The lead time for the translation itself depends on document type, volume, language pair and any required certification, and is confirmed in the quote. For tight deadlines we confirm a workable rush schedule up front rather than promising a fixed turnaround.

We combine native specialist translators with a structured QA layer: a terminology list, a style guide and a second review where the legal field, risk profile or volume requires it. CAT tools (Trados, memoQ, Phrase TMS) keep terminology consistent across volume and repeated content, including Hanja disambiguation where the source document requires it, and a translation memory keeps follow-up work aligned and lowers the cost over time.

For legal Korean translation — contracts, M&A documentation, court documents, articles of association — we pair you with a translator who has a legal background and match terminology to the Korean legal system, with Hanja disambiguation where homophones make it necessary. Our legal-translation page goes deeper into certification, the closing statement of accuracy and terminology choices. See [legal translation](/en/services/legal-translation/).

A Korean translation agency takes the coordination off your hands. We select the specialist who fits your document and sector, match the variant and honorific register to your reader, arrange certification, notarisation or legalisation where an authority requires it, and have the work checked by a second reviewer. You keep one point of contact for terminology, scheduling and delivery, all under a single quote. A skilled freelance translator does excellent work too; the difference an agency adds is bringing those moving parts together so you are not managing them separately.