Could a translation error lead to squares to not be considered as rectangles?

Question

I'm reading a certain set of kindergarten/lower primary maths textbooks that is written by North American authors for an Asian company.

Whenever students are asked to identify the number of rectangles in a given picture, the answer booklet gives the number of oblongs instead of the number of rectangles.

While the topic may be too advanced for kindergarten students, the maths textbooks indeed explicitly say at the bottom of the first page of a textbook at the very first level to tell students that squares are special types of rectangles, where levels 1-4 are for kindergarten students.

Additionally, the accompany guide for teachers devotes a whole page of discussion as to how to teach that squares are special types of rectangles. There's even a paragraph about teaching to kindergarten students. The authors/some of the co-authors of the teacher guides are also authors/co-authors of the textbooks. They have also said that if students are taught that squares are not rectangles, then they will have misconceptions later.

Perhaps, the ones who wrote the answer booklets were not fluent in English while the ones who wrote the textbooks were.

For example

[picture with 4 circles, 2 triangles, 3 square rectangles, 2 oblong rectangles for a total of 5 rectangles]

Circle ___

Triangle ___

Square ___

Rectangle ___

The answer key would give only the numbers:

4

2

3

2

So, the last line is wrong since it should be 5.

Could this happen in Korean? Or a Korean dialect? I mean, is there something specific about the translations of any of the following words 'rectangle, square, oblong, quadrilateral, quadrangle, parallelogram, trapezoid/trapezium, rhombus' that would cause such confusion? I guess the translator/s thought that when English speakers say 'rectangle', it means 'oblong in their language/dialect, but I don't see that as specifically a problem for this particular language.

By the way, are squares considered rectangles in Korea?

Related:

Are kindergartners supposed to be steered from squares being rectangles?

In what curricula are “rectangles” defined so as to exclude squares?

Why do we have circles for ellipses, squares for rectangles but nothing for triangles?

What are/should kids (be) taught about the colour of the sun?

Answer 1

Could this happen in Korean? Or a Korean dialect?

Nah, not at all. This is just an obvious geometric concept. Korean language does not have a single word for a non-square rectangle, which might have caused such a translation problem if it existed; so it has nothing to do with Korean language.

The Korean terms have the same definitions with the English ones:

• A quadrangle is a 사각형 (四角形), where 四 means four, 角 means angle, and 形 means shape: a four-sided plane figure, especially a square or rectangle.
• A rectangle is a 직사각형 (直四角形), where 直 means perpendicular, and 四角形 means a quadrangle: a plane figure with four straight sides and four right angles, especially one with unequal adjacent sides.

• A square is a 정사각형 (正四角形), where 正 means right and neat, and 四角形 means a quadrangle: a plane figure with four equal straight sides and four right angles.

• 사각형 (quadrangle) ⊃ 직사각형 (rectangle) ⊃ 정사각형 (square).

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It's just that they misused the term rectangle.

The thing is that they just used rectangle to mean one with unequal adjacent sides, which might not be a good practice, and it has nothing to do with linguistic inter-language terminology confusion.

Answer 2

quadrangle=quadrilateral=tetragon=사각형

rectangle =직사각형 (quadrangle with four right angles)

regular tetragon=square=정사각형 (which is included in rectangle)

oblong rectangle (In the context, this is a rectangle which is not a square. But in Korea, I never heard a specific word. We do not use frequently. If we are in the situation, then we say 정사각형이 아닌 직사각형)

parallelogram =평행사변형 (quadrangle such that any side is parallel to the side in facing position)

trapezoid/trapezium=사다리꼴 (quadrangle such that there is a side parallel to the side in facing position)

rhombus=마름모 (quadrangle with four sides of equal lengths)