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Languages in North Korea


Languages in North Korea

The official language is Korean. Note that North Koreans are quite picky about referring to Korean as Choseonmal, not hangukmal. Unlike South Korea, North Korea has abolished Chinese hanja characters and uses hangeul characters, known as Choseongul, exclusively. Your guides will speak fairly decent and understandable English (some better than others) and will translate something if you wish. Other guides have the ability to speak both Korean and either Mandarin, German, Japanese, or Spanish, depending on where you come from. Although locals may be discouraged from speaking with foreigners due to government propaganda that implies foreigners are generally up to no good, and language can prove to be an additional barrier, there is no formal law preventing citizens of the DPRK from interacting with tourists. A visit to the DPRK around their holidays may give you more of a chance to interact with the locals.

The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about North Korea


Where To Stay & Best Hotels in North Korea - updated Mar 2024

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North Korea Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.

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