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Are the tours done in English?

What level of Korean would you say someone (I'm Canadian) needs to be able to get by? I understand there is always a tour guide, who is a government official. But I just want to know if some Korean is recommended. Thank you.

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North Koreans speak a pretty different dialect of Korean than South. Some words are the same, grammar is a little different, a lot of modern words are completely different. As such you wouldn't be expected to know any Korean at all, and even if you knew some, you probably wouldn't be able to use it. At best they would struggle to understand you, at worst they'd be offended and kick you off the tour ;)

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