Will they speak English, and what to do when they do not

영어가 통하나

This is the most common worry we see, and the honest answer is that it often depends on the individual person standing in front of you, not on the business.

Reviewed 2026-09-27 · Updated 2026-09-28 · Written from the public sources listed below

What to expect by place

Front desks at large bathhouses, chain gyms and hotels may manage the basics. Small neighbourhood places may manage little beyond a number and a nod, and that is fine for a transaction that is mostly pointing. Salons and head spas are the ones where it matters, because a haircut or a colour depends on a conversation, and in those shops English may live with one particular designer rather than with the shop.

So the useful question is not whether the salon speaks English. It is whether the person you are booking with does.

What works when nobody does

A translation app with camera input covers signs, menus and posted hours, and many visitors use one: in a government study, the domestic translation app was the most used among foreign visitors. Speech translation helps with short exchanges and can struggle in noisy rooms. Photos beat sentences for anything visual.

For the recurring questions, showing a prepared Korean sentence on your screen can work better than a live translation, because the wording has been checked and it is short enough to read at a glance. That is what the phrase cards in this app are for.

Being polite while doing it

A hello and a thank you in Korean, then the phrase card, then pointing. Reducing what staff have to produce in English makes the exchange easier for both of you.

What we record

English capability is a dated fact per venue, marked confirmed, not available, or not confirmed yet.