The embarrassing translation errors in Korea’s free trade agreements have revealed the government’s weakness in translation skills and a startling overconfidence in its civil servants’ foreign language abilities.

The shoddy work in translating the Korea-EU free trade agreement brought the situation to light. The original Korean version of the FTA submitted to the National Assembly contained 207 errors. Alarmed, the government turned its attention to the more politically sensitive FTA with the U.S. After the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade hired three professional translators and posted the agreement online for the public to read, it found 296 errors in 1,259 pages, one error for every five pages. The errors included 166 mistranslations, nine grammatical errors and 65 omissions.

Another 145 errors were found in the Korean version of the FTA with Peru, which was signed in March and has not been ratified. The government now says it will review five other FTAs that are already in effect, including the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with India.

People in the translation industry say they weren’t surprised. Despite the importance of good translation for an economy so dependent on exports, the government doesn’t hire many, doesn’t compensate them well and believes that the language skills of its general civil servants are good enough to get the work done.

“The foreign service exam requires a minimum of 700 points in the TEPS test, so everyone at the Foreign Ministry is capable of translation,” said a Foreign Ministry human resources department official. “Over the past decade, about 300 civil servants were hired for their language skills, and they all work on translation.”

As of this month, the major government ministries only employ a handful of professional translators.

The Ministry of Strategy and Finance has 19 translators, while the Ministry of Knowledge Economy has six. The Ministry of Unification has four, while the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs has three. Only two translators are working for the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has 10 English-speaking editors and two Spanish editors specialized in translation and proofreading. Three more professional translators were hired to proofread the FTAs recently.

The Foreign Ministry admitted that the translation of the 1,300-page Korea-EU FTA was primarily done by unpaid interns because commissioning professional translators would have cost about 260 million won ($232,000). The attempt to save the budget backfired with the embarrassing 207 errors. Read more.

See: Korea Joongang Daily