Document Translation for South Korea

Universities have the documents sent to them, not to you

The first thing that stands out in applications to South Korea for study is how exacting institutions are about documents. Many programmes may require documents in a particular form, in a sealed envelope or sent directly by the issuing institution. Documents handed over in person, or arriving in an envelope that has been opened, are not accepted on some programmes; it is a rule with no bearing on the quality of the translation, yet it eliminates a file outright.

The application guidance therefore has to be read word for word. It usually sets out separately how the document is to be delivered, which documents are to be translated and which are to be certified. Send us the guidance and we will plan the form each document takes accordingly.

Family ties and financial means: the two sets asked about most

Two groups of documents in student files surprise applicants from Türkiye more than any others. The first is the civil status documents establishing the family relationship between the student and the person who will provide financial support; the second is the bank and income documents showing that the support is real. The two are expected to be submitted together and in a way that corroborates each other.

The problem that arises most often with these documents is that the name of the account holder does not match the name on the relationship document, or that the family tie has not been established by any document at all. Adding a document that shows the tie directly, such as a civil registry extract, closes off most of the questions at the outset. In bank documents, the currency, the date and the account holder details all have to appear in the translation.

The dates on the documents matter too; financial documents are treated as short-lived, so they should be produced close to the application date. A bank letter obtained too early may count as invalid on the day you apply.

The Latin spelling of your name has to stay fixed

In business conducted in Korea your name goes on the record both in Latin letters and in the local script. The Latin spelling has to match the one in your passport exactly; otherwise a mismatch arises between the school registration, the bank account and the immigration records. How the letters peculiar to Turkish are to be carried across should also be decided at the outset and preserved in every document.

The same holds in the other direction: there is more than one common method for rendering Korean names in Latin letters, and the spelling in a person’s passport is not always the most common of them. When you have a Korean document translated into Turkish, telling us the passport spelling keeps the records consistent.

Documents by purpose

Form of approval, order and timing

Since there is no sworn translator regime, the translation is submitted with a declaration of accuracy and the office’s attestation; the form of certification for the document itself is determined by the institution you apply to. Confirming from an official source how the chain of certification is to be built keeps you from paying for a layer you do not need.

The order runs as follows: obtain the original document, have the certification annotation added, have the translation prepared, then send it in the form set out in the guidance. Because application windows are narrow, the planning has to be done backwards from the deadline; a translation may be finished within a few working days, but the time needed to obtain and to send the documents has to be counted in.

Upload your documents so that we can assess them together with your application guidance and see what is missing from the start; do look at our per-page starting rates as well.

Work files and intra-company assignments

What decides a work file is the link between the nature of the job to be done and your education and experience. A diploma on its own is not treated as sufficient; documents showing what field you worked in and for how long play at least as large a part in establishing that link. Setting the job description out plainly in experience documents is critical for exactly that reason.

Where Turkish companies assign staff to their local offices, documents showing the link between the companies are added to the file: the shareholding structure, the assignment letter and the company records. In these documents the company name has to appear in the same form throughout; an abbreviation in one document and the full name in another makes the link harder to establish.

Short-lived papers such as the criminal record certificate and medical documents should again be left to last. Preparing long-lived documents early and short-lived ones late protects you from the cost of rush delivery and from the cost of renewal alike.

A set of documents arises at the end of an assignment as well; obtaining the letter that shows your period of service and your title before you leave will serve you later, whether in Türkiye or in another country.

The information on this page gives the general framework; the authority you apply to may ask for additional documents or for a different form. Before you decide anything, it is worth looking at the institution’s own publication.