South Koreans become younger overnight after country scraps 'Korean age' | CNN (edition.cnn.com)

submitted 2 years ago by withersailor@aussie.zone to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

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[-] cosmicsploogedrizzle@lemmy.ml 24 points 2 years ago

A baby born on Dec 31st is 1 year old, and the next day would be 2 years old ... A 2 day old baby would be considered 2 years old. Glad they decided that this was beyond odd.

[-] dotancohen@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

My daughter was born at 22:30 on December 31. In Korea she would have been considered 2 years old when she was born less than 2 hours previously.

[-] HenriVolney@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 years ago

Too bad they didn't keep their very own system of measurement which is so much more convenient than the internationally recognized and simple system... Not looking in anybody's direction

[-] Augapfel@feddit.de 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

babies are considered a year old on the day they’re born

Is there any useful idea behind this? That sounds completely dumb.

[-] troyunrau@lemmy.ca 17 points 2 years ago

It's just semantics. When you are born, you are in your first year of life, not your zeroth year of life. After a full year, you are one year old. Grammar varies from language to language, and sometimes one feels more natural.

Imagine everyone in English said "I'm in my 32nd year" instead of "I'm 31 years old." Now you meet a foreigner who says the opposite. Translation issues abound!