Korean Romanizer

How to Use the Korean Romanizer

1. 1. Paste the Hangul. Words, names, place names and whole sentences all work; anything that isn't Hangul passes through unchanged.
2. 2. Set the options. Tick Personal name for a name written family name first. Keep Write ㅎ … separately on for nouns and names, and turn it off for verbs, where ㄱ, ㄷ or ㅂ and ㅎ merge (잡혀 → japyeo).
3. 3. Read both results. Revised Romanization spells the pronunciation; the transliteration spells the letters and can be turned back into Hangul.
4. 4. Check the sound changes. Every boundary where pronunciation changed the spelling is listed under the results — 종로 is ㅇ+ㄹ pronounced ㅇ+ㄴ, so it is written Jongno.

How Revised Romanization Works

Revised Romanization, adopted by South Korea in 2000, uses only plain Latin letters — no breves, no apostrophes — and writes words as they are pronounced. Each Hangul syllable is a block of an initial consonant, a vowel and sometimes a final consonant; Unicode arranges all 19 × 21 × 28 possible blocks in order, so the converter takes each one apart arithmetically and then applies the rules where syllables meet.

Two things are deliberately not written. Tensification — the tense consonants heard in compounds such as 압구정 [압꾸정] — is ignored, so the name is Apgujeong. And in nouns, ㅎ after ㄱ, ㄷ or ㅂ keeps its own letter (묵호 → Mukho, 집현전 → Jiphyeonjeon), while in verbs the two sounds merge (잡혀 → japyeo). Spelling alone cannot tell a noun from a verb, so the converter asks.

Names, capitals and hyphens

Personal names are written family name first, then the given name as one word: 한복남 is Han Boknam (Han Bok-nam is also allowed), with no sound changes between the given name's syllables — not Han Bongnam. Proper names are capitalized. A hyphen may separate syllables that could be misread, as in 중앙 (Jung-ang) and 반구대 (Ban-gudae). Administrative units take a hyphen with no sound change across it — 충청북도 is Chungcheongbuk-do and 인왕리 is Inwang-ri — so add those by hand.

Family names have customary spellings that the official system leaves alone. Kim, Lee and Park are far more common than the Revised Romanization forms Gim, I and Bak, and the novelist 한강 publishes as Han Kang, not Han Gang.

Korean Names and Titles in Citations

Cite a Korean author by the name printed on the work you used — Han Kang, if that is how the book credits her. Romanize names and titles yourself only when you work from the Korean original, and use one system for every Korean name and title in your reference list. How to Cite a Source in Another Language covers the bracketed English translation that APA, MLA and Chicago add after a title, and the family-first name order to keep.

Libraries are the exception to Revised Romanization. The Library of Congress catalogs Korean in McCune–Reischauer (its ALA-LC table) — 서울 is Sŏul, 부산 is Pusan and 김치 is kimch’i — so a catalog record will not match the spelling on a Seoul street sign.

Why No McCune–Reischauer?

ALA-LC applies McCune–Reischauer to pronunciation as recorded in designated dictionaries, with its own word-division rules, and many of its spellings cannot be predicted from Hangul: 평가 is p’yŏngka and 문법 is munpŏp because those words are pronounced with tense consonants the spelling doesn't show. Rather than guess, the converter gives McCune–Reischauer's letter values in the table and leaves full romanization to the tools the Library of Congress itself lists — its BIBFRAME ScriptShifter and Princeton's K-Romanizer — both of which need correct word division to give accurate results.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the official romanization of Korean?

The Revised Romanization of Korean, adopted by South Korea's Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2000 and published by the National Institute of Korean Language. It replaced a version of McCune–Reischauer and is used on road signs, on maps and in government documents. North Korea uses its own McCune–Reischauer variant.

Why is 종로 romanized Jongno and not Jongro?

Because Revised Romanization spells the pronunciation, and ㄹ after ㅇ is pronounced ㄴ: 종로 sounds like [종노]. The same nasalization turns 독립문 into Dongnimmun and 왕십리 into Wangsimni.

How do I romanize a Korean name?

Family name first, then a space and the given name as one word, with no sound changes between the given name's syllables: 한복남 is Han Boknam. Tick Personal name to get this form. Many people have established spellings of their own — Kim, Lee, Park — so for a real person, use the spelling they use.

What is the difference between romanization and transliteration of Korean?

Revised Romanization writes the sounds, so 독립 is dongnip. Its transliteration rule, meant for academic work where the Hangul must be recoverable, writes the letters: doglib, with ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ and ㄹ always g, d, b and l, and a hyphen for a silent ㅇ inside a word (굳이 → gud-i).

Should I use Revised Romanization or McCune–Reischauer in a bibliography?

Use the system your style guide, journal or field prescribes. Korean studies has long used McCune–Reischauer, and library catalogs still do, while Revised Romanization is South Korea's official standard. Whichever you choose, apply it to every Korean name and title, and keep authors' own published spellings.

Does the converter get every word right?

Not quite — no converter working from spelling alone can. A few compounds are pronounced in ways the letters don't show: 학여울 has an inserted ㄴ (officially Hangnyeoul) and 신문로 keeps ㄴ instead of turning it into ㄹ (officially Sinmunno). The converter gives Hagyeoul and Sinmullo for these, so check place names against an official list.