Brand Incubating
Adapting a product name and copy for Korea
Decide first whether the name is spelled by sound or translated by meaning. Spelling by sound adds syllables, and f, v, z, r and l collapse into single letters. Includes the six-step check for names already in use, where copy length and sentence order get rebuilt, and five questions for a local review.
Putting a product name and its copy into Korean is not a swap of one sentence for another. It is a rewrite. First decide whether the name is spelled by sound or translated by meaning. Then rebuild the copy for Korean length and Korean word order. Confirm the result with three or more people who use Korean daily, reading it aloud. Source language here means the language the product was first made in.
How do you decide between spelling by sound and translating by meaning?
There are three routes for moving a name across.
| Route | Choose it when | Decide at the same time |
|---|---|---|
| Spell by sound | The name is a person, a place, or an invented word with no meaning to carry across | Fix one spelling and stop there |
| Translate the meaning | The meaning of the name connects straight to what the product does | Whether that word is already in common use |
| Keep the original, add Hangul | Packaging and logo stay exactly as they are | Where the Hangul form sits on the page |
One line settles it — does the meaning of the name connect straight to what the product does? If it does, translate the meaning. If it does not, spell by sound.
Whichever route you take, you build only one Hangul spelling. What people type into a search box, say on the phone, and write in a review is all Hangul. Two spellings in circulation means one product travelling under two names.
What changes when the name is spelled by sound?
Hangul writes sounds, and it packs a consonant and a vowel into one syllable block. A vowel goes in wherever consonants run together, and the syllable count rises. The English word desk becomes three syllables, 데스크. Strike becomes five, 스트라이크.
Sounds that Korean does not carry separately collapse into the nearest one.
| Sound in the source | Written in Hangul as | What follows |
|---|---|---|
| f | ㅍ | Words starting with p end up spelled the same |
| v | ㅂ | The b group ends up spelled the same |
| z | ㅈ | The j group ends up spelled the same |
| r and l | ㄹ | The two cannot be told apart in writing |
| Consonants in a row | A vowel between them | One to three syllables are added |
Two things get checked here. The first is the new syllable count. Past six Hangul characters a name gets shortened when people say it aloud, so set the short form yourself. The second is other words that now share the spelling. A name can land on a common word, and the next step is where that gets caught.
In what order do you check whether the spelling is already taken?
This narrows the candidates down. A candidate that fails one step does not move to the next.
| Step | What you look at | If it fails |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Write down three to five Hangul spellings | — |
| 2 | Put each spelling into a search portal and look for a product or shop with the same name | Drop the candidate |
| 3 | Search once more as spelling plus product type | Note where the overlap sits |
| 4 | Identical or similar names in the trademark records a public agency publishes | Have a trademark agent make the call |
| 5 | Whether the domain and the account handles are free | Change the spelling or add a word after it |
| 6 | Show the spelling alone to someone who uses Korean and ask what it reads as | Drop it if it reads as something else |
Trademarks are registered by class of goods. The same characters can produce a different answer under a different class, so registrability goes to a trademark agent. A clean search result and a free name are not the same thing.
Where does the length of the product copy change?
Some places grow and some shrink at the same time. Korean has no articles and does not mark plurals separately, so words drop out. Running the other way, every noun takes a particle — a short marker attached to a noun to show its role — and a name spelled by sound gains syllables.
So do not measure in characters. Put the text on the screen and measure the width. One Hangul character takes about the space of two Latin letters. The places that break first are predictable.
- Text inside a button — rewrite it down to four to six characters
- List card titles — look at the screen and see whether they wrap to a second line
- Table header cells — change the wording to fit the column
- Text baked into an image — the image has to be remade
- Sizes and volumes — convert to the units used locally, and check labelling rules in the material the relevant agency publishes
Why does the sentence order have to be rebuilt?
In Korean the modifier comes first and the predicate comes at the end of the sentence. Move a source sentence across in its original order and the conclusion slides to the very back. In a place where only the first line or two gets read, the conclusion ends up off the screen.
The fix is to split the sentence. When one sentence carries both a condition and a conclusion, pull the conclusion into a first sentence and push the condition into a second.
Settle the sentence ending as well. Korean copy either closes with the polite form ending in -합니다 or stops on a noun, and the two are not mixed on one screen. Headings and list items stop on a noun, body text closes with -합니다 — set it by position.
Where the source copy runs on wordplay, rhythm, or a comparison that only lands at home, that part is not translated. It is written again. Copy built on a sound leaves no sound behind in another language.
How do you have a Korean speaker check the result?
Show it to someone other than the person who wrote it. Three or more people who use Korean, one of them seeing the product for the first time. Asking whether it sounds odd only produces the answer that it is fine. Ask questions that can come back different ways.
| What you check | The question, used as written | What to read in the answer |
|---|---|---|
| Reading the name | Please read this name out loud | Where they stop mid-word |
| Impression of the name | From this name alone, what do you think is sold here? | Answers that differ mean the meaning did not carry |
| Meaning of a sentence | Can this sentence be read another way? | The spot with two readings |
| Reading flow | How far did you read before you paused? | The sentence right before the pause |
| The screen | Is any text cut off or overflowing? | Anything that wrapped to a second line |
One person collects the answers and makes the edits in a single pass. Three people editing separately puts the spelling back into two versions.
What to do today
Write down three Hangul spellings of the product name and put each one into a search portal to see whether another product already uses it. Thirty minutes is enough. For whatever survives, show that spelling alone to one person who uses Korean and ask what they think is sold under that name. What you settle today is not the final name. It is the one candidate whose trademark you check next week.
