5 Ways to Use ChatGPT for the Language Barrier in Korea

Support Local Businesses and Local Ads

Did you know that ChatGPT can help you navigate the language barrier in South Korea? Our volunteers and community members successfully use ChatGPT in daily life for reading and analyzing Korean. Here are some of our use cases.

What is ChatGPT?

We have met many people who have not heard of or used ChatGPT. So we asked Chat GPT to explain what it is and it gave this very wordy explanation:

“ChatGPChatGPT is an advanced language model developed by OpenAI, designed to understand and generate human-like text based on the input it receives. Built on the GPT-4 architecture, ChatGPT is trained on a diverse range of internet text to facilitate natural language conversations. It can answer questions, provide explanations, engage in dialogue, and assist with various tasks by generating relevant, coherent, and contextually appropriate responses. ChatGPT is employed in a wide range of applications, from customer support and content creation to personal assistance and educational tools, thanks to its ability to adapt to various conversational contexts and its capacity for understanding nuanced queries.” – ChatGPT

In summary, ChatGPT can help with many different things including language translation for daily life.

Support Local Businesses and Local Ads

ChatGPT Trains on Native Korean Information

We benefit from ChatGPT in Korea because OpenAI partnered with several Korean organizations to expand the use and integration of ChatGPT in Korea. For example, OpenAI partnered with SK Telecom, one of the largest telecommunications companies in South Korea.

This means that ChatGPT trains on native Korean information and platforms. This makes ChatGPT one of the most powerful, versatile, and accurate online translation tools available. For example, ChatGPT can more accurately understand slang, Konglish, and apply the right honorifics to messages.

Here are some of the ways our volunteers and community have successfully used ChatGPT to navigate the English / Korean language barrier in more dynamic ways than a traditional translation app provides.

Analyzing and Responding to Messages

ChatGPT can be a lifesaver when trying to set up appointments or answer text messages when you can’t speak Korean. We speak intermediate Korean and still use ChatGPT to read and interpret incoming information since it’s faster and more efficient than managing the communication ourselves. It also helps us catch some hidden culture or clarify confusing language.

See example below:

Example of Analyzing Text Message
Example of Forming a Response

Understanding Product Descriptions While Online

If you have paid ChatGPT you can put in a link from Coupang or other shopping sites and ask for ChatGPT to look for specific information or explain the product. We like to do this to see if there is any fine print we might have missed. We will also ask ChatGPT to compare two products when we have trouble picking one option.

See the examples below:

Example Explaining Product
Example Comparing Products

Reading Food Labels for Specialty Diets

If you are vegan or have allergies, you can upload an image of a product’s ingredients list and ask ChatGPT to analyze it for potential issues regarding your special diet.

See example below:

Example of Analyzing a Food Label

Sourcing Keywords for Naver or Instagram

Finding the right keywords can sometimes be a challenge. You can use Papago for simple search terms but many popular online search terms are slang or konglish. To get more dynamic search terms ask for ChatGPT’s help.

See example below:

Example of Keywords for Instagram
Example of Keywords for Naver

Understand Board Games

Board Game Cafes can be a lot of fun in Korea but sometimes you need to find the game directions in English or translate a certain card. You can ask ChatGPT for help with this and it does an excellent job. We used it recently for our Jinramyeon game played similar to Ramen Fury.

See example below:

Example of Explaining Game Rules
Explaining a Card

How Do You Use ChatGPT for Translation?

We would love to hear more about how others in the community use ChatGPT for daily life tasks. We know you guys must be doing amazing things with it as well.

What Other AI Tools Do You Find Helpful?

We would also love to hear about any AI tools you use for managing your life in South Korea. It’s important that international residents fully understand all of their options for communicating and navigating the language barrier.