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Korean age reckoning regards a person as one year old at birth, as the nine months in the mother's womb is counted as a year. Moreover, each Korean's age increments on New Year's Day.
The Korean word "sal" does not correspond exactly to the English concept of "years old." In effect, the Korean age counting system is ordinal, as centuries are counted in English, and refers to calendar years, not "net" years. For example, someone is one "sal" during the first calendar year of life, and ten "sal" during the tenth calendar year. The confusion arises from the translation of "sal" into "years old," and vice versa, for convenience. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...
This means that a baby born on the last day of the year would be 2 "sal" upon the arrival of the new year, although baby's net age in days or months is often used as well. Koreans celebrate the 100th day of life. For persons past babyhood, the Korean "sal" is often 1 year higher than their Westerner age in "years old."
This contrasts with the Western notion of counting age as the number of net years elapsed since birth. Thus a Western baby is 0 years old until its first birthday, when it turns one. Baby ages in the West are usually measured in months until 24 months.
In modern Korea, the Western age system is widely known and referred to as "man," or net, "sal." For example, "man yeol sal" would mean ten net years, or simply "ten years old" in Western usage.
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