Anchor: As South Korea's international profile increases, Korean restaurants are printing menus in foreign languages to accommodate increased numbers of foreign residents and tourists. The translations, however, are far from perfect. To combat this problem, the National Institute of the Korean Language has released standard translation guidelines.
Our Kim Soyon tells us more.
 
Report: While many restaurants now have menus in other languages besides Korean, the translation is often poor, sometimes to the point of embarrassment.
 
Restaurants have struggled to convey Korean food in another language, offering ridiculous translations such as “six times” for “yukhoi,” a sliced raw beef dish. Other menus have portrayed “dolsot bibimbap,” bibimbap served in a hot stone bowl, with titles like “rice hash with vegetables in stone pot.”
 
Food titles like these often spread on social media, making Koreans laugh out of frustration. However, a standardized list has now been created to combat the amusing translations.
 
The National Institute of the Korean Language said Wednesday that it finalized the standard for translating 300 staple Korean dishes into English, Japanese and Chinese. This project was based on an agreement reached between the culture and agriculture ministries last year. 
 
Translation experts and native speakers were consulted when determining the translated names for Korean dishes divided into 20 categories, such as rice, soup, noodles, side dishes and grilled food.
 
The 20 categories cover just about all Korean food that foreigners will encounter in daily cuisine.
 
The standardized names will mostly be rendered in the other languages, but some dishes known better in their Korean name will be kept the same.  
 
For instance, the sliced raw beef will be translated as “beef tartare,” while the mixed rice dish will continue to be called “bibimbap.”

The institute gave the list to the Korean Food Foundation to spread the standardized names across the industry. 
Kim Soyon, KBS World Radio News.