Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Mico]

I couldn't find any threads about this using the search function.

Does anyone use a Korean-English Electronic Translator? Can you recommend one? Are they even worth it?

Thank you for your help.

[sulperman]

Don't know anything about any handheld translators, but translate.google.com has gotten much better than it used to be.

Back in the day whatever you put in in Korean would come out as "bedsheets sliced raw fish sliced raw fish the time is gyedongseok bedsheets" or something like that.

It's not perfect now, and throw in a bit of slang and it's all over, but it does a surprisingly good job some of the time.

[waseige1]

I have had NO luck finding a good one and I have looked. I was used to my Spanish translator which would find conjugated verbs and much explanation in English. I have found many problems with all of them I have looked at.

1) Many times in Korean they don't split the words when they write. "White House" can be written as "WhiteHouse" rendering the translator useless.

2) The translator will not find ANY conjugations. The verbs must be input using the raw "다" form. And here again, words can be combined.

3) When I do input a word (especially English to Korean), most all the output of the translator is in Korean and there is so much that I have no chance of finding the "right" word".

I finally settled on using my phone dictionary. I can put in an English word and then show the Korean the output and let them guess the right word. For instance about a week ago I needed to buy some ink. I input ink, I said in Korean "I don't speak Korean" and showed the clerk the phone. It worked.

As for Korean to English. I only find about 1/2 the words I want and I somewhat understand the conjugations.

In short, there is a market for such a device, but I believe all of them made today are made for Koreans that want to know English and NOT the other way around.

[bbonthec]

I've heard iRiver makes a good one. Never tried it myself, but my friend used an iRiver to study Korean with. He is now 90% fluent.

[Mico]

Thanks, the Iriver DICPLE D28 got good reviews

[LL Moonmanhead]

[Mico]

[lifeinkorea]

I use a small pocket dictionary. It has all the essential words without multiple meanings you won't need. If it has good example sentences, you might want to it get it (I bought one for Japanese), but I haven't seen a decent one for Korean.