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Hauptverfasser: Kim, Hongjin, Lee, Jaewook, Lee, Kiyoung, Shin, Jong-hun, Lim, Soojong, Kwon, Oh-Woog
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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Online-Zugang:https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.05459
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author Kim, Hongjin
Lee, Jaewook
Lee, Kiyoung
Shin, Jong-hun
Lim, Soojong
Kwon, Oh-Woog
author_facet Kim, Hongjin
Lee, Jaewook
Lee, Kiyoung
Shin, Jong-hun
Lim, Soojong
Kwon, Oh-Woog
contents Large Language Models (LLMs) demonstrate strong reasoning and self-correction abilities in high-resource languages like English, but their performance remains limited in low-resource languages such as Korean. In this study, we investigate whether reinforcement learning (RL) can enhance Korean reasoning abilities to a degree comparable to English. Our findings reveal that RL alone yields limited improvements when applied to models lacking inherent Korean reasoning capabilities. To address this, we explore several fine-tuning strategies and show that aligning the model's internal reasoning processes with Korean inputs-particularly by tuning Korean-specific neurons in early layers-is key to unlocking RL's effectiveness. We introduce a self-correction code-switching dataset to facilitate this alignment and observe significant performance gains in both mathematical reasoning and self-correction tasks. Ultimately, we conclude that the crucial factor in multilingual reasoning enhancement is not injecting new linguistic knowledge, but effectively eliciting and aligning existing reasoning capabilities. Our study provides a new perspective on how internal translation and neuron-level tuning contribute to multilingual reasoning alignment in LLMs.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_05459
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Do LLMs Need Inherent Reasoning Before Reinforcement Learning? A Study in Korean Self-Correction
Kim, Hongjin
Lee, Jaewook
Lee, Kiyoung
Shin, Jong-hun
Lim, Soojong
Kwon, Oh-Woog
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Large Language Models (LLMs) demonstrate strong reasoning and self-correction abilities in high-resource languages like English, but their performance remains limited in low-resource languages such as Korean. In this study, we investigate whether reinforcement learning (RL) can enhance Korean reasoning abilities to a degree comparable to English. Our findings reveal that RL alone yields limited improvements when applied to models lacking inherent Korean reasoning capabilities. To address this, we explore several fine-tuning strategies and show that aligning the model's internal reasoning processes with Korean inputs-particularly by tuning Korean-specific neurons in early layers-is key to unlocking RL's effectiveness. We introduce a self-correction code-switching dataset to facilitate this alignment and observe significant performance gains in both mathematical reasoning and self-correction tasks. Ultimately, we conclude that the crucial factor in multilingual reasoning enhancement is not injecting new linguistic knowledge, but effectively eliciting and aligning existing reasoning capabilities. Our study provides a new perspective on how internal translation and neuron-level tuning contribute to multilingual reasoning alignment in LLMs.
title Do LLMs Need Inherent Reasoning Before Reinforcement Learning? A Study in Korean Self-Correction
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.05459