Faulty English-Korean Dictionaries

According to a English language professor, Lee Jae-ho Korean-English dictionares are substandard and need revising:

In his book entitled, “A Criticism of English-Korean Dictionaries,” an elder English literature scholar at Sungkyunkwan University, emeritus professor Lee Jae-ho, pointed an accusatory finger at the shortcomings of the nation’s publications in this area, which he said were riddled with holes and inaccuracies. Many important terms are missing in the entries, and explanations often don’t use pure Korean expressions, he noted.

Most dictionaries do not contain media terms that have now gained common currency, such as “free trade agreement” (FTA) or “libero,” a volleyball term, he said. This is a lamentable state of affairs in a country where 12 million people pour time and money into studying English each year, even spending W5 trillion in private tutoring.

There are many times I have used my dictionary to communicate here in Korea and I am always able to get my point across but there has been times when I have been told that a phrase or word described in the dictionary would be better said in a different manner. Mostly I it is because the dictionaries tend to use the polite Korean words and phrases instead of the more common phrases.

Fortunately in Korea, there is always a scapegoat and bad dictionaries are no different:

The problem is said to stem from our paraphrasing of English-Japanese dictinaries that were published earlier in Japan. Given all the current talk of celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the country’s liberation from Japan’s colonial rule, and our ensuing cultural independence, now is clearly the time to amend this historical hiccough.

Japanese colonialism 60 years ago is responsible for Korea’s bad dictionaries? Hasn’t Korea had 60 years to fix this alledged problem? Whose fault is that?