‘Pretty officer’? Defense ministry’s glossary for multicultural soldiers plagued with translation errors

1. Summary

Several translation errors were found in a Ministry of National Defense glossary meant to help soldiers unfamiliar with the Korean language, raising questions about the ministry’s vetting process as the number of troops from multicultural backgrounds continues to grow.
Since a 2009 revision to the Military Service Act, all Korean nationals have been subject to mandatory military service regardless of race or skin color, opening the door for people from multicultural families to serve.
The number of soldiers from multicultural backgrounds has steadily increased since then, from 51 in 2010 to more than 600 by 2016. The ministry stopped compiling such statistics after 2016, citing concerns that doing so could constitute discrimination.
But the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses projected that the number of soldiers from multicultural backgrounds will reach about 10,000 by 2030.

2. How is this related to the sub

(1) Diversity in the military: Korean military is struggling with accommodating “multicultural” Koreans ( Koreans who are not ethnically Koreans but have citizenship) despite its number rapidly increasing. The ministry is not even tracking those soldiers and piled up with other soldiers at the moment as tracking them is considered “discriminatory”.