Romajahwa beta

South Korea's official romanization system is named "Romanization of Korean" (국어의 로마자 표기법),¹ but it is commonly called "Revised Romanization of Korean" (RR). RR was first adopted in 2000. Before RR, South Korea used a modified version of McCune–Reischauer (commonly called "MOE-1984").

RR attempts to romanize Korean pronunciation; it is not one-to-one with Hangul spelling. Also, some consonants are written differently depending on where they are in a syllable, e.g. ㅂ is generally b in the initial position, but is sometimes p in the final.

독립 → dongnip ([동닙])
독립 → doklip
집사 → jipsa
집사 → jibsa

In rare cases where reversibility back to Hangul is desired, one can use the academic variant of RR (RR-ACA), which is available on this site. However, I discourage most people from doing this; in my opinion, its usefulness is largely limited to writings on linguistics. If a reader may benefit from knowing the original Hangul for a term, display the Hangul next to the romanization, e.g. dongnip (독립). Nowadays, with the proliferation of Unicode and other improvements in technology, displaying Hangul is largely feasible.

1. Rules can be found here: National Institute of Korean Language, Romanization of Korean

RR is meant for the romanization of current South Korean writing, namely Hangul. Its rules are not fully compatible with North Korean, archaic Hangul, or other orthographies.

For example, North Korea's spelling rules sometimes generate different spellings for words it shares with South Korea. In North Korea, the word 수강아지 is pronounced [수캉아지]. In South Korea, that word is spelled how it is pronounced: 수캉아지. RR aims to represent pronunciation, so should we romanize 수강아지 as sukangaji or sugangaji? RR just does not tell us.

Archaic Hangul orthographies have similar issues, but more obviously, there are simply no values in RR for many letters like the araea (ㆍ) or the bansiot (ㅿ). While it is tempting to try and invent values for these, I think the world has enough ad-hoc romanization systems for Korean. These autoromanizers attempt to be as faithful as possible to the original rules of the systems.

Surround people names with %, e.g. %한복남%.

Why not do ^한 ^복남? This would be incorrect in RR. In RR, people names do not reflect euphonic changes, unlike most other text. %, among other features, disables euphonic changes.

%한복남% → Han Boknam
^한 ^복남 → Han Bongnam ([한봉남] because of assimilation)

For multisyllable surnames or mononyms, check the quick guide to see how to format them.

Non-Koreans often insert hyphens into the given names of Korean people (e.g. 홍길동 as Hong Gil-dong), but to my understanding, most Korean people do not actually have hyphens in their legal names.¹

This autoromanizer does not include hyphens in given names of people by default. While RR specifies that hyphens are permissible to include in given names, the default is no hyphenation. Also, in several writings from around RR's publication, members of the National Institute of Korean Language wrote skeptically about hyphenation to disambiguate pronunciation in general.²

1. While this guidance is not a part of RR, it is worth noting that South Koreans are encouraged to not use hyphens in their given names in passports. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 「로마자성명 표기의 기본방법」
2. 김세중 (2001); 「로마자 표기와 붙임표(-)」, 정희원 (2000), 「새 로마자 표기법의 특징」

Sometimes an [ㄴ] sound appears in pronunciation but not in spelling (ㄴ의 첨가). In RR and MR-SK, we must romanize that sound.

Some cases of ㄴ-addition are built into the romanizer, as they always have ㄴ addition.

꽃잎 → kkonnip ([꼰닙]; all cases preceding 잎)
밤윷 → bamnyut ([밤뉻]; all cases preceding 윷)

Some cases are less predictable, and must be handled using @. The ambiguity resolver can suggest these.

콩@엿 → kongnyeot ([콩녇])
콩엿 → kongyeot (not [콩엳])

In most cases, when a final ㄴ is followed by an initial ㄹ, they are pronounced [ㄹㄹ], like in 신라 [실라] (Silla) or 난로 [날로] (nallo).

However, sometimes they are pronounced [ㄴㄴ], like in 임진란 [임진난] (Imjinnan). To indicate this, use an at symbol (@). The ambiguity resolver can suggest these. Otherwise, the romanizer assumes a default of [ㄹㄹ].

이원@론 → iwonnon ([이원논])
이원론 → iwollon (not [이월론])

Aspiration (격음화) in Korean is when ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, or ㅈ combines with an adjacent ㅎ to become [ㅋ], [ㅌ], [ㅍ], or [ㅊ], respectively. E.g. 복합하다 [보카파다].

RR asks that aspiration be applied, except for in nouns, numerals, and pronouns (collectively, 체언).¹ This romanizer automatically handles most of these cases (including when ㅎ precedes ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㅈ). However, ㄱㅎ, ㄷㅎ, and ㅂㅎ need to have an @ inserted. The ambiguity resolver can suggest these.

격@하다 → gyeokada ([겨카다])
격하다 → gyeokhada (not [격하다])

1. The English-language version of the documentation doesn't adequately communicate this nuance and only mentions nouns; the original Korean-language documentation specifies 체언.

Normally, when a final consonant is followed by an initial ㅇ, the final consonant is moved to replace the ㅇ, e.g. 앞이 [아피] (api). This is called resyllabification. However, sometimes, the pronunciation of that final consonant is neutralized before being resyllabified. Neutralization is when a final consonant changes its sound to any of the following: [ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㄹ, ㅁ, ㅂ, ㅇ]. This process is called "neutralization + resyllabification" (절음 법칙).

This romanizer automatically handles most neutralization + resyllabification automatically, e.g. 겉옷 → geodot ([거돋]), not geotot.

However, some cases must be marked with $. The ambiguity resolver suggests these for you.

웃$어른 → udeoreun ([우더른])
웃어른 → useoreun (not [우서른])

Some input can be romanized/unromanized in more than one way. The romanizer highlights these spots in yellow. Click each one, pick the right option (or "No" if none apply), then press the button again. In rare cases, you may need to do multiple rounds of ambiguity resolution.