"Middle Mile" Changed to "Intermediate Logistics"... 34 Refined Korean Terms Announced

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, together with the National Institute of the Korean Language, announced that they have refined 34 foreign terms commonly used in the media and daily life into easy-to-understand Korean equivalents.

The Saemalmoim Committee, which includes participants from the media, academia, and young people, prepared candidate replacements for these terms. Subsequently, an acceptance survey was conducted among 3,000 people nationwide aged 15 and over. After that, the final versions of the terms were confirmed through a review by the Korean Language Purification Subcommittee of the 3rd National Language Deliberation Council held in 2026.

The survey found that the terms the public most wanted to see replaced with Korean were, in order: "Middle Mile" (73.8%), "Echo Chamber" (72.9%), "Mingling" (72.4%), and "Hip Tradition" (70.8%).

"Middle mile," which refers to the intermediate logistics stage where goods are transferred between hubs such as logistics centers, was refined to "intermediate logistics." "Echo chamber," describing the phenomenon of one's beliefs or values being reinforced by repeatedly encountering information aligned with one's own disposition, was changed to "belief amplification." "Mingling," referring to socializing with people one does not know, was altered to "harmonizing." "Hip tradition," which means reinterpretation of traditional culture with a modern sense, was changed to "new-sense tradition."

Foreign terms frequently used in the semiconductor sector in Korea were also refined into easier Korean. "Fab," a factory that manufactures semiconductor chips, was replaced with "semiconductor manufacturing plant" or "semiconductor production factory." "Foundry," which refers to producing semiconductors based on designs outsourced from external sources, was changed to "semiconductor contract manufacturing." "Fabless," which refers to companies focusing primarily on design and sales without semiconductor manufacturing facilities, was refined to "semiconductor design specialist company."

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the National Institute of the Korean Language announced that they will continue to quickly review and refine newly introduced and unfamiliar expressions into Korean, and distribute these terms through various channels such as social media so that the public can easily understand and use them.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.