National Institute of Korean Language Republic of Korea

(1) Romanization is based on standard Korean pronunciation.
(2) No symbols except Roman letters are used so far as possible.

(1) Vowels are transcribed as follows : simple vowels

Note 1: 'ㅢ' is transcribed as ui, although being pronounced as 'ㅣ'.
Note 2: Long vowels are not reflected in transcription. 

(2) Consonants are transcribed as follows :

Note 1 : The sounds ㄱ, ㄷ, and ㅂ are transcribed respectively as g, d, and b before a vowel; they are transcribed as k, t, and p when they appear before another consonant or as the last sound of a word. (They are transcribed as pronunciation in [ ].)

Note 2 : ㄹ is transcribed as r before a vowel, and as l before a consonant or at the end of a word: ㄹㄹ is transcribed as ll.

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

However, aspirated sounds are not transcribed in case of nouns where ㅎ follows ㄱ, ㄷ, and ㅂ, as in the examples below.

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

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

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

(4) Personal names are written by family name first, followed by a space and the given name. As a rule, syllables in given names are not seperated by hyphen, but it is admitted to use a hyphen between syllables. (Transcription in (  ) is permitted.)

(5) Administrative units such as 도, 시, 군, 구, 읍, 면, 리, 동, and 가 are transcribed 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 transcribed.

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

(7) Proper names such as personal names and those of companies may be written as they have been so far.

(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 ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㄹ are always written as g, d, b, 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.