Ever since I joined the BTS fandom I kept hearing one thing that didn’t really make much sense to me. Most of the articles and videos I saw which spoke about how the BTS group debuted kept saying the youngest member (referred to as the Maknae in Korean) Jeon Jungkook joined BigHit at the Korean age of 15, and I wonder just what this Korean age is and how different it is from the international age.
Today I’m going to break down every single aspect of the Korean age. If you meet Koreans for the first time, they’ll ask your name and your age first. Being able to talk about your age in Korean is very important in Korean culture.
In most countries, it is often viewed as disrespectful or impolite to ask someone (especially women) for their age, but that is not so for Koreans, one of the first things a native Korean will ask you when you meet is your age. This is not due to a lack of politeness or respect rather it is quite the opposite. There are varying levels of politeness when conversing in Korean and this is exactly why people will ask for your age, they want to know so that they can address you accordingly.
Korean Age: How Old Are You In South Korea (with Calculator)
However, when you give them your answer, you may see them nodding their head and stating a number that is higher than your actual age, or they may inform you that you are actually older in Korean age. Why is the Korean age different? This is due to the different Korean age system, which is different from the international age. So if you see any K-Pop star saying their age in Korean, you should know their international age is different.
While other countries consider newborn babies to be ‘zero’ years old upon birth, native Koreans actually calculate the time babies spend in their mother’s womb as a ‘year’ (although technically, it is 9 months, they round it up to one year), when babies are born in Korea, they are considered to be 한 살(
)= one-year-old”. This automatically adds one year to the age that you may be used to. So when someone in Korea tells you, for example, that they are 스무 살(
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A native Korean would normally add two years to their ‘Western age. This is because Koreans automatically gain a year on January 1st, regardless of whether their birthday has passed or not. International Agemeasures how long you have lived. Korean Agemeasures how many years you have experienced.
, let’s say a child was born on December 31st, 2019. This child is already a year old, according to the Korean age, but only a day later, on January 1st, 2020 the child adds another year. Although the child is only two days old, he/she will already be two years old in Korean age, because everyone gains a year when the new year begins. So their actual age in international standards, or 만 나이(
), would technically be ‘zero’ years old, but when the parents are asked about the age of their child, they will probably answer, “한국 나이로 두 살이에요.”(
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Note: Korean age system, is only a cultural thing. In order to avoid confusion and keep up with international standards, on official documents such as a passport or a birth certificate, everyone in Korea will use their 만 나이(
), or international age. This means that when you see the age of Korean sport stars at theOlympics, it will be their international age, not their Korean age. An additional piece of information that doesn’t get talked about as much is that, depending on the Korean, they might actually calculate their age based on the Lunar calendar instead of the Western New Year. In this case, while your age is still calculated by the year you were born in, people born in, say January of 2020, are still considered the same age as those born in 2019 simply because Lunar New Year hasn’t passed yet by the time they were born.
Note: Korean age system, is only a cultural thing. In order to avoid confusion and keep up with international standards, on official documents such as a passport or a birth certificate, everyone in Korea will use their 만 나이(
), or international age. This means that when you see the age of Korean sport stars at theOlympics, it will be their international age, not their Korean age. An additional piece of information that doesn’t get talked about as much is that, depending on the Korean, they might actually calculate their age based on the Lunar calendar instead of the Western New Year. In this case, while your age is still calculated by the year you were born in, people born in, say January of 2020, are still considered the same age as those born in 2019 simply because Lunar New Year hasn’t passed yet by the time they were born.
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