Bilingual contracts are normal in Korea and mostly harmless. The problem appears when the two versions differ and someone needs to rely on the difference. At that point the question is not which one you read. It is which one governs.
→Start With the Prevailing-Language Clause
Many bilingual contracts contain a clause saying that in the event of a discrepancy, one version prevails. If your contract has one, read it before anything else — it answers the question directly, and it is almost always the Korean version that is named.
If there is no such clause, the answer is not automatic. A court works out what the parties actually agreed, and the language you could actually read is part of that inquiry, alongside how the negotiation ran and which version was signed.
| Situation | Practical Effect |
|---|---|
| Clause names Korean as prevailing | The Korean text governs, including terms you never read |
| Clause names English as prevailing | Unusual, but binding — keep the English original safe |
| No clause, both signed | Interpreted from the whole context, including what you could read |
| Only Korean signed, English "for reference" | Weakest position — the reference copy may carry little weight |
1Statutory Rights Sit Above Both Versions
This is the reassurance worth having early. A contract term — in either language — that falls below what Korean labour law guarantees does not work simply because you signed it.
Minimum wage, statutory leave, severance where the conditions are met, and limits on deductions are not negotiable downward by agreement. A discrepancy that pushes a term below the statutory floor is a discrepancy that does not matter, because the floor applies anyway.
What the language question really governs is everything above that floor: notice periods, bonus conditions, housing arrangements, penalties for early departure, scope of duties.
The gap only bites where the law is silent. Unfortunately, that is where most of your working conditions live.
2Where the Gaps Usually Are
Discrepancies are rarely random. In practice they cluster in the same handful of places.
- Termination and notice — the English version says one month, the Korean version says something else, or adds grounds not mentioned in English.
- Early departure penalties — a clause about repaying airfare, recruitment fees, or housing costs that appears in only one version.
- Working hours and what counts as work — office hours, prep time, and mandatory events described differently.
- Housing — what is deducted, who pays utilities, what happens to the deposit when you leave.
- Renewal — whether renewal is automatic, and what notice either side must give.
These are the clauses that decide what happens at the end of the relationship, which is exactly when nobody is willing to be flexible.
3A Penalty Clause Is Not Automatically Valid
A common Korean-only addition is a clause requiring an employee who leaves early to repay costs or pay a fixed sum. Whether such a clause holds up depends on what it actually is.
An agreement fixing a penalty for breach of an employment contract runs into a specific prohibition in Korean labour law. Genuine reimbursement of an identifiable cost the employer actually bore is treated differently from a round-number penalty attached to leaving.
So a clause of this kind in the Korean version is worth examining rather than accepting — the fact that it is there does not settle whether it works.
4Before You Sign
The cheapest moment to deal with this is before signature, and the fix is unglamorous: get the Korean version explained clause by clause by someone who is not the employer.
If a discrepancy turns up, the clean solution is to correct the text so both versions match, not to add another clause explaining the discrepancy. Ask for the corrected version and sign that.
Keep your own signed copy of both versions. Employees who later discover a gap frequently find they never received a copy of the Korean text at all.
→If You Have Already Signed
- Get both versions in front of you — request the Korean copy in writing if you do not have it.
- Find the prevailing-language clause first — it may end the question immediately.
- Separate statutory from contractual — anything below the legal floor is not really in dispute.
- Keep the recruitment correspondence — emails about terms help show what was actually agreed.
- Raise a discrepancy while the relationship is good — corrections are easy then and impossible later.