Spelling Mistakes: A Dealbreaker for Intellectual Attraction?

“Don’t tell me what to do,” “Get well soon from your cold.” While it might be tempting to laugh it off, such breakdowns in spelling can be a chilling reason to bring a budding romance that started through messaging (KakaoTalk, DMs, etc.) to a sudden ‘catastrophe.’

According to recent statistics from matchmaking agencies, approximately 78% of men and women in their 20s and 30s responded that “spelling errors made by the other person drastically decrease their attraction.” Why is spelling, beyond a simple matter of knowledge, treated as a ‘fatal disqualification as a romantic partner’?

1. Destruction of Intellectual Attraction

Even if initial attraction stems from appearance or personality, a sense of connection through conversation (intellectual exchange) is necessary for a relationship to be maintained.

• Repeatedly making basic spelling errors (않/안 [anh/ahn], 낳/낫 [nah/nat], 어이/어의 [eo-i/eo-ui], etc.) unconsciously leads to doubts about the other person’s ‘level of education and refinement (literacy).’
• This is the biggest reason for reducing the trust score of the other person in the process of envisioning a long-term relationship or the future (such as raising children in marriage).

2. A Signal of Lack of ‘Effort’ and Sincerity

Excessively spacing words in messages (e.g., ” I a m e a t i n g t o d a y ”) or completely ignoring spelling (repeated typos without correction) is psychologically perceived as ‘insincerity’ by the other person.

• “They don’t feel the tension of wanting to look perfect to me.”
• “They are an insincere person who doesn’t even bother to correct typos that make it difficult to understand the context before pressing the send button.”

In the tense relationship of ‘썸 [some, budding romance]’ where you write and delete a message like “How are you?” 10 times before sending it at the beginning of the year, grammatical errors are a strong red light indicating a lack of ‘willingness to look good to you.‘

3. Acceptable Range of Appropriate Emoticons and Slang

This does not mean that you should only use perfect sentences listed in the Korean dictionary.

1. Intentional variations and aegyo (acting cute) (“Ung, algesseo! [Okayyy!]”): This is a device to increase intimacy and is generally accepted because it plays the role of a ‘social lubricant’ that relieves stiffness. 🥰
2. Typing errors (“Wanjeon joayo [Totally like it]”): One or two simple keyboard typos can be overlooked as cute, but the act of recognizing and correcting your mistake afterward (“Joayo* ㅎㅎ [Like it* ㅎㅎ]”) gives an even greater human charm and liking. 🤩

Text remains as a record. Before pressing the send button, take just one second to reread your sentence. That is the most cost-effective investment to safely preserve your charm in KakaoTalk’s back-and-forth. 💯