Look at this sentence you might hear someone say,
“서강철 시장님이 재선에 출마하겠다고 발표했습니다.”
“Mayor Seo Kang-cheol has announced that he will be running for re-election.”
Normal, right? Now look at how that same information appears in a Korean news headline:
“徐 시장 재선 출마 발표”
“Seo mayor re-elect run announce”
If you try to read the headline using your textbook Korean knowledge, you’ll probably feel at least a bit lost.
Korean news operates within a specialized style that requires you to think differently about how the language works.
We won’t get too bogged down in linguistics jargon, but a few words that I do want to cover are pretty fundamental to the Korean language, the first being 문체 (writing style). This concept is important because it’s how Korean speakers think about and systematize language forms.
문체 uses 문 (文 – writing) and 체 (體 – body/form) – but it goes much deeper than style choices. Though this word can also be used to describe a writer’s personal style, for our purposes, we’ll be focusing on its other use – categorizing grammar forms.
The two major categories of 문체 are:
구어체 (spoken style) – Language patterns used in everyday conversation
문어체 (written style) – Language patterns limited to writing and documents
There are tons of these things. It’s used to categorize standard grammar forms like 해요체 (ending sentences with -아/어/여요) or 하십시오체 (ending sentences with -십시오), which has led Korean speakers using this concept to categorize meme-y forms of speech like 보그체 (Vogue style – where speakers randomly throw English words into their speech) or 이응체 (ㅇ style – ending sentences with an extra ㅇ, 감사합니당, 안녕하세용).
Korean News: A Specialized 문어체 System
Within the 문어체 framework, we’ll mainly focus on two styles:
- 기사체 (article style) or 보도체 (press style)
- 해라체 (plain style, or narrative present style)
These aren’t random choices. Korean news developed these specialized 문체 to serve specific functions: conveying information objectively, efficiently, and with institutional authority rather than personal politeness.
Why This Matters for Korean Learners
Understanding 문체 (and its associated terms) as a concept helps to explain why Korean news often feels so alien. You’re encountering 문어체 you’ve never dealt with before. The system (made by Korean speakers for Korean speakers) assumes you understand Korean culture, context, and linguistic patterns well enough to “decompress” highly compressed information like “anyone else.”
Throughout this course, you’ll encounter several different 문체 that Korean uses for different purposes. Understanding this framework helps you recognize when you’re encountering specialized language systems rather than just “hard vocabulary.”
Why Korean Headlines Look So Dense
Now that you understand the 문체 terminology system for organizing different forms of Korean, we can explore how our main character, 기사체, works. Korean news achieves information density through a combination of three techniques that work together to compress language as densely as possible without losing any meaning.
Let’s start with a simple comparison. Here’s the same information in conversational Korean versus news Korean:
Conversational Korean (구어체): “서강철 시장님이 재선에 출마하겠다고 발표했다.” “Mayor Seo Gang-cheol announced that he would run for re-election.”
News headline (기사체): “徐 시장 재선 출마 발표”
“Seo mayor re-elect run announce”
The headline contains exactly the same information but uses way less words. It’s based on the assumption that readers can mentally reconstruct the full grammar of the sentence in their head.
Technique 1: Strategic Particle Removal
The most noticeable difference between conversational and news Korean is that news systematically removes particles. This follows clear patterns:
Subject particles (이/가) → Always removed in headlines
- Conversation: “서강철 시장님이 공약을 발표했습니다”
- News: “서강철 시장 발표”
Object particles (을/를) → Always removed in headlines
- Conversation: “공약을 발표했습니다”
- News: “공약 발표”
Location particles (에/에서/에게) → Usually removed in headlines
- Conversation: “서울에서 이주했습니다”
- News: “서울 이주”
This works because consistent use of word order maintains enough context for a native speaker. The subject typically comes first, the object comes next, and the main action comes at the end of the sentence, which means anything in-between is descriptive. Native speakers can easily fill in the missing particles in their heads.
Example: “이민호 예비후보 정식 출마… ‘기존 공동체 보전’ 대안 제시”
With particles: “이민호 예비후보가 정식 출마와 ‘기존 공동체 보전’ 대안을 제시했습니다.”
“Lee Min-ho officially announces candidacy with ‘Preserve Our Communities’ alternative development plan.”
Reading this without particles:
이민호 예비후보 (who) + 정식 출마… (action) / ‘기존 공동체 보전’ 대안 (what) + 제시 (action)
“Lee Min-ho officially running… presents “Preserve Our Communities” alternative
Note: Korean headlines can break information up to form two sentences’ worth of information using ellipses (…).
Technique 2: Noun Phrase Stacking
Korean news builds information by stacking related nouns together. Think of it like building blocks where each noun adds a layer of specificity:
Basic structure: [Who] + [What details] + [Action]
Let’s break down a complex headline:
徐 시장 재선 출마·용궁포 3조원 재개발 계획 발표… ‘동북아 바다 관광 중심지’
We can start by breaking this down into 2 parts, thanks to the ellipses:
- 徐 시장 재선 출마·용궁포 3조원 재개발 계획 발표
- ‘동북아 바다 관광 중심지’
But, we can break it up again! First, let’s introduce our second bit of punctuation now, the interpunct: ·
This gets used in several ways in Korean:
1. List Separator (like “and”): When connecting related items or topics
- 정치·경제 (politics and economics)
- 한국·미국·일본 (Korea, America, and Japan)
2. Clause Separator: When two related actions or topics are mentioned in the same headline
- 재선 출마·용궁포 3조원 재개발 계획 발표 (re-election candidacy announcement · Yonggungpo 3 trillion won redevelopment plan announcement)
3. Alternative Separator (like “/”): When showing options or similar concepts
- 검토·분석 (review/analysis)
- 확인·점검 (confirmation/inspection)
In our headline, the interpunct connects two related announcements happening at the same time: the mayor’s re-election bid AND his development plan announcement.
So we can actually break this up into the following parts:
- 徐 시장
- 재선 출마
- 용궁포 3조원 재개발 계획 발표
- ‘동북아 바다 관광 중심지’
Working backwards from the first portion’s action word 발표:
- 재선 출마·용궁포 3조원 재개발 계획 발표 (re-election campaign + 용궁포 3 trillion won redevelopment campaign promise announcement)
徐 시장 재선 출마·용궁포 3조원 재개발 공약 발표… ‘동북아 바다 관광 중심지’
(Mayor Seo Gang-cheol announces re-election bid with 3 trillion won 용궁포 redevelopment plan)
Each layer adds detail without adding grammatical complexity.
Technique 3: Action Nominalization
News Korean converts verbs to noun forms instead of using them in their action forms:
- 발표하다 (to announce) → 발표 (announcement)
- 출마하다 (to run for office) → 출마 (candidacy)
- 확정하다 (to confirm) → 확정 (confirmation)
- 제시하다 (to present) → 제시 (presentation)
A Note About Future Tense
You might wonder why we only covered past and present patterns. What about future tense in news? Here’s the thing: Korean future constructions like -ㄹ 것이다 are grammatically still present tense.
Think about it: -ㄹ 것이다 literally means “it is a thing that will happen.” The core verb 이다 is present tense, so even when news reports on future events, they’re still using present tense grammar.
Examples:
- “내일 회의를 개최할 예정이다” (scheduled to hold a meeting tomorrow)
- “다음 주 결과를 발표할 것이다” (will announce results next week)
The 이다 stays the same in 해라체 because it’s already in plain form for descriptive statements.
How to Read News Headlines: The Restoration Method
Here’s a systematic approach to understanding any Korean news headline:
Step 1: Find the action word (usually the last word)
Step 2: Identify the main actor (usually first)
Step 3: Mentally add particles working backwards
Step 4: Convert to full sentence structure
Example: “용궁포 마리나 시티 일자리 2만개 창출 효과”
- Step 1: 효과 (effect) is the main concept
- Step 2: 용궁포 마리나 시티 (용궁포 Marina City) is the subject
- Step 3: Add in particles → 용궁포 마리나 시티의 일자리 2만개를 창출하는 효과
- Step 4: (a natural translation) “The 용궁포 Marina City Effect: creating 20,000 jobs”
Practice Opportunities
Try applying this method to these 용궁포 headlines:
- “태평건설 투자계획 확정”
- “이민호 예비후보 정식 출마 대안 제시”
For the first headline:
- Action: 확정 (confirmation)
- Actor: 태평건설 (Taepyeong Construction)
- Full meaning: “Taepyeong Construction confirms their investment plan”
Beyond Headlines
These same compression techniques appear throughout Korean formal writing:
- Government forms: “신청자 서류 제출 마감일” (applicant document submission deadline)
- Business communications: “회사 정책 변경 안내” (company policy change notice)
- Academic papers: “연구 결과 분석 보고서” (research result analysis report)
Understanding how news Korean works allows you to apply these same reading strategies to any formal Korean document.
In our next lesson, we’ll explore the specific grammar patterns that Korean news uses, which is called 해라체, and how it differs from the conversational Korean you’re familiar with.