One personalized support option open to all individuals visiting or residing in Korea is to call the 1330 Korea Travel Hotline & Complaint Center. They support Korean, English, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Vietnamese, Thai, and Malay. For Russian, Vietnamese, Thai, and Malay, the service is offered daily 08:00-19:00 and 24/7 for the other languages. If you are within Korea dial 1330, if overseas dial +82-2-1330, or call them through their app. The service is available for a variety of needs and will connect you to the correct service if they cannot help. For more information on the service, please click visit the Korea Tourism Organization's website.
BBB Korea, or Before Babel Brigade Korea, is a volunteer language service designed to remove spoken language barriers for international visitors or residents in Korea. It was founded in 2003 by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism after a successful interpretation program in 2002 for the World Cup. The group later became an non-profit organization in 2011. Their website is available in 21 languages, including Korean, and a wide variety of 20 languages that are supported 24/7. You can call them directly at 1588-5644, select the language you wish to use, and a volunteer will try and help you over the phone. They also have a phone app available for iPhone and Android which can also connect you. They have signed agreements with multiple groups, including Inha University Hospital for their international patients and Goyang City as international events are held in the KINTEX conference facility.
In addition to spoken interpretation, the group hosts other events, including walking tours, friendship runs, and speech contests. Check some of the pages below for more information.
Disclaimers on their website mention the service is not designed for conferences calls, interpretation is not available over their website, they cannot participate with business negotiations, and this is for public benefit so no assistance with homework or document support.
Links: Official website, Facebook
Wikipedia pages: Korean, German, Japanese, Spanish, Vietnamese, Traditional Chinese
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