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The Romanization of Korean
(Ministry of Culture and Tourism proclamation No. 2000-8)

1. Basic Principles of Romanization

  (1) Romanization is based on standard Korean pronunciation.
  (2) Symbols other than Roman letters are avoided to the greatest extent possible.

- simple vowels - diphthongs

  Note 1 : is transcribed as ui, even when pronounced as .

  Note 2 : Long vowels are not reflected in Romanization.

  (2) Consonants are transcribed as follows:

- plovsives(stops) - affricates - fricatives - nasals - liquids

  Note 1 : The sounds and are transcribed respectively as g, d, and b when
  they appear a vowel; they are transcribed as k, t, and p when followed by   another consonant or form the final sound of a word.
  (They are Romanized as pronunciation in [ ].)

e.g.

  Note 2 : is transcribed as r when followed by a vowel, and as l when followed by a consonant or when appearing at the end of a word. is transcribed as ll.

e.g.

3. Special Provisions for Romanization

  (1) When Korean sound values change as in the following cases, the results of those
       changes are Romanized as follows:

    a. The case of assimilation of adjaent consonants

e.g.

    b. The case of the epenthetic and

e.g.

    c. Cases of palatalization

e.g.

    d. Cases where and are adjacent to

e.g.

  However, aspirated sounds are not reflected in case of nouns where follows   and , as in the examples below.

e.g.

  Note : Tense (or glottalized) sounds are not reflected in cases where morphemes   are compounded, as in the examples below.

e.g.

  (2) When there is the possibility of confusion in pronunciation, a hyphen "-"may be
       used.

e.g.

  (3) The first letter is capitalized in proper names.

e.g.

  (4) Personal names are written by family name first, followed by a space and the
  given name. In principle, syllables in given names are not separated by hyphen,
  but the use of a hyphen between syllables is permitted.

e.g.

    a Assimilated sound changes between syllables in given names are not transcribed.

e.g.

    b Romanization of family names will be determined separately.

  (5) Administrative units as , and are transcirbed
respectively as do, si, gun, gu, eup, myeon, ri, dong, and ga, and are preceded by
a hyphen. Assimilated sound changes before and after the hyphen are not
reflected in Romanization.

e.g.

  Note : Terms for administrative units such as may be omitted.

e.g.

 (6) Names of geographic features, cultural properties, and man-made structures may
be written without hyphens.

e.g.

  (7) Proper manes such as personal names and those of companies may continue to
be written as they have been previously.

  (8) When it is necessary to convert Romanized Korean back to Hangeul in special
cases such as in academic articles, Romanization is done according to hangeul
spelling and not pronunciation. Each Hangeul letter is Romanized as explained in
section 2 except that and are always written as g, d, b and l. When ㅇ
has no sound value, it is replaced by a hyphen. It may also be used when it is
necessary to distinguish between syllables.

e.g.