4. International age vs Korean age > The mystery of the Korean Age System

4. International age vs Korean age

I'll show how to count the Korean age.

I was born on June 27th, 1987. Here's a question. How old was I when I was born? 0? That's the international age. I was 1 in Korea. Our age starts from 1, not 0.

There are some opinions about why Koreans use the different counting:

1) Koreans include the period which our mothers were pregnant for. We tend to think the pregranancy period is about 1 year. (I know it's not exactly 1 year but around 9 months.)

2) Koreans have the different concept of the age. '1' means it's first year. While the international age presents how long a person has lived, the Korean age means how many years a person has lived.

3) Koreans don't apply 0 to people. For ancient Koreans, 0 meant 'not exist', so perhaps people thought it was strange to use 0 for a live baby.

Then, Koreans get 1 year old every January 1st as I told you on the previous post, right? So how old I was on January 1st, 1988? I was officially 2, but my mom probably didn't say I was 2 at that time and say I was a 6-month-baby. I mean we don't really apply the Korean age to a baby.

Now, I'm 23 in the international age and 25 in the Korean age. After June 27th, 2011, I'll be 24. Crystal clear? ;D

# To see other posts that related to this topic:
  0. Introduction
  1. Lular birthday and solar birthday?
  2. All Koreans get 1 year old on January 1st.
  3. Why do Koreans always ask people's age?
  4. International age vs Korean age