A tourist stumbling across the streets of Hannam-dong is baffled by a road sign which points to the embassy of “Namapeurika Gonghwaguk.”

The sign, which is plain gibberish in English but is phonetically what South Africa is called in Korean, shows the extent of how many English signs in the country fail to serve the purpose of helping foreigners obtain information.

A road sign in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province, reads “Gongyeongjuchajang,” which is the Romanization of “public parking lot” in Korean but means absolutely nothing in any other language.

In response to complaints about unclear and downright wrong English signs, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday that it will overhaul English signs and public notices that are grammatically incorrect or misleading for foreigners.

According to officials, the ministry will gather input from state agencies and regional governments about signs which need to be fixed. The focus will be mainly on signs that foreign visitors routinely come across, particularly at tourist sites and cultural properties.

The ministry will then collect opinions from native speakers in cooperation with ChattingCat -- a platform that provides grammatical corrections for poor English -- to come up with possible alternatives.

Feedback from native speakers will be uploaded on the government’s online data processing “On-Nara BPS system” for government bodies to see.

Unhelpful English signs are scattered all across the country.

For instance, a road sign in Korea’s resort destination Jejudo Island says, “Seobjikoji (9 kilometers), without any indication that it is a beach.

Signs in the popular shopping district of Dongdaemun present challenges as well. While some signs say, “shopping center,” others say, “sangga,” which means shopping center in Korean.

According to data provided by Rep. Kang Eun-hee of the ruling Saenuri party, 29.6 percent of the 9,077 English signs across the country were inconsistent with government standards. The situation was the worst in South Jeolla Province, where 41.8 percent of English signs were found to be incorrect.

Some mistakes are even supposedly done on purpose. “Some Sevit,” the artificial island on the Hangang River, is a combination of the Korean word for island, “seom,” which sounds like “some”, and its name, Sevit. According to officials, they used the word “Some” on the sign to refer to “awesome,” which they hoped would be visitors’ response. However, the name of the island is not used consistently, appearing as “Sebitseom” on the introductory section on its homepage and as “Some Sevit” at another area of the page. 

By Yoon Min-sik (minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)