Korean webtoons continue to rise in global popularity with Korean drama adaptations taking over the world by storm which shows how crucial good quality Korean webtoon translation is towards a webtoon’s success. A webtoon must cater to all of its audiences and deliver the same quality of entertainment both to local and international readers.

Korean webtoons were born to feed into the snack culture of not just South Korea, but all over the world. You can easily read a webtoon on a commute, a short break, or before sleeping. The purpose is to consume it in small portions. Thus, its format is a first of its kind; a format that caters to smartphones. This was such a bright move for them since 6.6 billion people in the world use smartphones, they are bound to have audiences on their platforms especially people who want something to do in their short idle time.

Difficulties in Korean Webtoon Translation

Regular translation will not cut it for webtoons. There are certain processes that webtoon must undergo in order to get the best translation possible. Thus, interest and reading frequency for comics, manga, or webtoons is important for translators.

Webtoon translation is not all about translating the sentences’ word for word. The main issue with translating a webtoon is the space given for each bubble. Most of the time, the bubbles for dialogue are small given how webtoon’s design is for snack culture consumption. Translating it into other languages that take up more space than Korean will definitely be a challenge in itself.

In addition, Korean is a highly contextual language. It shows through their language’s wordplay and idioms. Not every language works the same way. Thus, when sentences are translated literally, some will not make sense and will sound off to a native speaker.

Korean to English Webtoon Translation

English translators have a hard time with Korean translation especially with context. It’s a highly acquired skill to know Korean to English webtoon translation since you have to focus not on the words but on the artist’s message itself. The message you have to deliver is the message that the artist wants the reader to know, not the exact translation of the dialogue. Therefore, translators must have an eye for context and creativity to deliver such high contextual sentences in a different language.

A huge chunk of the webtoon market speaks English as their native or second language. Thus, ideally, English is an excellent language to target when it comes to webtoon translation. 

Where Can I Read Korean Webtoons in English

Are you looking for official websites where you can read webtoons in English without having to use a 3rd-party translator application? Worry not, you can visit these websites that house the most popular webtoons as of the moment!

• Naver Webtoon
• Daum Webtoon
• Toomics
• KakaoPage
• Lezhin Comics

You can choose a variety of genres depending on your mood! As of 2022, there are millions of webtoon series you can read within reach. Immerse in the world of webtoon now!

High Quality Webtoon Translation

CREATIVE CONNECTIONS & COMMONS INC. offers high quality Korean webtoon translation to multiple languages. CCC has the following language pairs and more:

Korean to English translation

Korean to Japanese translation

Korean to Chinese translation

Korean to Indonesian translation

Korean to Thai translation

Get your money’s worth with CCC’s webtoon translation service. With a professional team of native and expert linguists to support translation, rest assured that your project will be in good hands. So, create a new story with CCC and take over the world one language at a time.