Messaging Giant Kakao Creates Korean Formal Language Translator | Be Korea-savvy

Messaging Giant Kakao Creates Korean Formal Language Translator


 Kakao, the corporation behind the eponymous messaging service Kakao Talk, has created a translation service that can handle both informal and formal Korean input, the first of its kind developed in South Korea. (Image: Kakao)

Press Conference at Kakao Office in Hannam-dong, Seoul(Image: Kakao)

SEOUL, Feb. 21 (Korea Bizwire)Kakao, the corporation behind the eponymous messaging service Kakao Talk, has created a translation service that can handle both informal and formal Korean input, the first of its kind developed in South Korea.

Formal or polite Korean is referred to as “jondetmal” or “nopimmal” and is employed when addressing social superiors – parents, work superiors, older individuals – and strangers. Korean is categorized into seven different speech levels of varying formality, and honorifics feature prominently as well. 

During a press conference held at its Hannam-dong office in Seoul, Kakao informed media present that its Kakao I AI platform-integrated translator will be released by June. The technology will be capable of processing both spoken- and written-style Korean.

Kakao further revealed that the translator will eventually be incorporated into its other services including Kakao Talk, Kakao TV and its AI speaker, Kakao Mini.

Kakao further revealed that the translator will eventually be incorporated into its other services including Kakao Talk, Kakao TV and its AI speaker, Kakao Mini. (Image: Kakao)

Kakao further revealed that the translator will eventually be incorporated into its other services including Kakao Talk, Kakao TV and its AI speaker, Kakao Mini. (Image: Kakao)

Of particular note is the plan to use the translator to generate subtitles for video content.

A company director said of the potential subtitling ability, “Though its output won’t be as good as that of a human’s, it should be sufficient for viewers to understand without difficulty.” 

Currently only available at translate.kakao.com, Kakao promised that an app version is coming soon. 

Languages supported will also increase from just English to include Japanese and Chinese. 

A company spokesperson said testing had revealed its Korean to Chinese and vice versa translation quality was superior to that of competitors, while its translation of Japanese was comparable to that of the best services. 

 

S.B.W. (sbw266@koreabizwire.com)

2 thoughts on “Messaging Giant Kakao Creates Korean Formal Language Translator

  1. Pingback: Messaging Giant Kakao Creates Korean Formal Lan...

  2. Alex Toh KAR TEK

    I have always been a great fan of Korean products from mobile phone and also Korea girl band and Korea drama. I feel Korean have done a successful branding in terms of outlook and also its product quality. I can say I really like almost every products from Korea.

    From this article I read about Kakao Talk, what made me excited about is its translation for Chinese. I speak Chinese but not Korea and it will do me good if I can use this when I travel to Korea.

    I have use a lot of translation devices and what I can say is that auto translation do not get 100% accuracy and still there is a need for the person to also know some basic knowledge of the language to do some touching up in order to achieve a perfect translation job done

    I do translation for website for English to Chinese. I can say that although Auto translation may not be able to get 100% accuracy,
    it can help us to cover a very large part of our job and save us a lot of our time. However It will be good to touch up some of the
    translated words manually so as to perfect the translation by correcting errors that had been arise caused by auto translation.
    As such I had put up learning video guide for people who are interested to learn manually translation. And this will cover the missing puzzle
    for language translation. The video guide is made in such a way that it is very straight forward and don’t cover too many explain logy that
    cause too much load for easy learning. They learner will need to go through a simple video guide explaining how to use Hnayu Pinyin. And
    after which every words are taught base on Hanyu Pinyin. The learner will be able to learn and pick up new words independantly after he master
    how to use Hanyu Pinyin.

    You can learn manual translation from

    http://www.englishtochinese.info/

    But before you can start learning each and every words, you need to first learn how to use the Hanyu Pinyin. You can watch

    the video guide here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaj2NXHYJHE

    The website is free and you do not need to pay any fee to learn

    Reply

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