How old are you today in Korea?

 Happy New Year!

And congratulations for getting a year older! What? Didn’t you know that everybody gets one year older on the first day of every new year in Korea? 

If you are new to Korean culture, you might be wondered what the hack “Korean age” is and confused about the age of a Korean actor. Fortunately, Korean government adopted the internationally accepted age counting system as of June 28th 2023, and you will not be confused with the age of Korean celebrities anymore when reading news articles or official anouncements. However, habitually many Koreans still use the Korean age system, So it would be helpful to know about how Koreans count their age.

There are three age systems in Korea.

• The first one is the internationally accepted one you are well aware of.
• The second one is the traditional age counting custom. You are one year old immediately at birth and then turns a year older on the next new year’s day. For example, if a baby was born on December 31st 2023, she is one year old on the same day she was born. Then, on January 1st 2024 she becomes two-year old technically when she is only two-day old biologically.
• The third age counting system is the one previously used by the government of official institutions. They consider people born in the same year as the same age regardless of their birthdays. So people who were born in 2000 are all 23 years old in 2023. This system was convenient for workers of government or social system in the past when there was no auto-calculating computors. Basically this system is not confusing to Koreans because they just deduct one year from the traditional way and people in the past were not that aware of the international age system. Probably this system disappeared as of June 28th 2023 when the Korean government announced that the international age system will be used in Korea.

 Anyway I hope this can be helpful when you are talking to Koreans.

I wish you a really happy new year and stay healthy.