Both Japanese and Korean formerly referred to Vietnam by their respective Sino-Xenic pronunciations of the Chinese characters for its names, but later switched to using direct phonetic transcriptions. In Japanese, following the independence of Vietnam the names and were largely replaced by the phonetic transcription , written in katakana script; however, the old form is still seen in compound words (e.g. , "a visit to Vietnam"). Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs sometimes used an alternative spelling . Similarly, in the Korean language, in line with the trend towards decreasing usage of hanja, the Sino-Korean-derived name "Wollam" (, the Korean reading of ) has been replaced by "Beteunam" () in South Korea and "Wennam" () in North Korea.