[j_lev]

You're not the only one that is bothered by the article. The thing that triggered my radar was that the entire thing read like fiction. If it looks like a duck,...

The dictionary sounds like bullshit. North Korean and South Korean are completely different dialects, with different orthography and spelling. Bigger differences than different spellings in English. I can't see a dictionary like that being of any use to his family.

There is no way sources can ever be checked, and that means anywhere from 0 to 100% of the article could be fabricated.

(edit: an analogy to better describe the dubious usefulness of the dictionary, it would be like a native Greek using a French-English dictionary to learn English)

[brenschluss]

> The dictionary sounds like bullshit. North Korean and South Korean are completely different dialects, with different orthography and spelling. Bigger differences than different spellings in English. I can't see a dictionary like that being of any use to his family.

Uh, totally wrong there. Might want to read up some more.

There are some minor spelling differences, pronunciation/accent differences. North Korean doesn't use any loan words, so there's a great deal of different terms for ice cream or radio, for example. But they're not totally different dialects. Any South Korean can understand a North Korean TV broadcast, for example.

[j_lev]

North Korea uses loan words, albeit from Russia.

[jpatokal]

English loan words, that is, which South Korean is packed to the brim with these days. South Korean say aiseukeurim, North Koreans say eoreumbosung-i ("ice pudding" or something).

[rainer_muell]

> North Korean and South Korean are completely different dialects, with different orthography and spelling. Bigger differences than different spellings in English. I can't see a dictionary like that being of any use to his family.

I'm actually studying Korean right now, and one of the textbooks I'm using relies on the North Korean dialect. I can attest that the differences are minor, and are mostly limited to things comparable to 'color' in AE and 'colour' BE.

[korisnik]

>North Korean and South Korean are completely different dialects

>I can't see a dictionary like that being of any use to his family.

I assume you don't speak any Korean and are talking out of your ass.

The standard Korean used in South Korea and North Korea are both based on the same dialect - Seoul dialect. There's vocabulary differences, but nothing that would prevent a (South) Korean-English dictionary from being useful to a North Korean person.

[onion2k]

You're quite right that a dictionary wouldn't be very useful to learn a language from scratch, but if you already understand it a bit and want to expand your vocabulary, or better understand materials you already have access to, it'd be extremely useful.

[jakobegger]

The article doesn't say "English/South Korean" dictionary, it just says "English" dictionary.