Learn 10 ways to say hello in Korean
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| Hi, everyone! I’m Jaehwi. Welcome back to Korean Top Words. In this video, we’ll be talking about 10 ways to say hello. Let’s begin! |
| 1. 좋은 아침이에요. (Joeun achimieyo) “Good morning.” |
| 좋은 (Joeun) means “good” and 아침 (achim) means “morning”. I don’t think Korean people in the past used that kind of phrase because it’s the literal translation of good morning. But these days, people use it quite often especially in the morning. I think some people say 안녕하세요. (annyeonghaseyo) to mean “hello” or some people might say 좋은 아침이에요. (Joeun achimieyo) “Good morning.”. |
| 2. 안녕하세요. (Annyeonghaseyo.) “Hello.” |
| This is the most common phrase to say hello. 안녕 (Annyeong) means something like being in peace so it literally means something like, Are you in peace?”. If you have to remember just one thing among 10 expressions that we’ll introduce in this video, this is the one that you have to remember, 안녕하세요. (Annyeonghaseyo.) “Hello.”. You can also say something else after saying 안녕하세요. (Annyeonghaseyo.). For example, if it is in the morning, you can say 안녕하세요. 좋은 아침이에요. (Annyeonghaseyo. Joeun achimieyo.) “Hello. Good morning.”, “Hello. It’s a good morning.”. |
| 3. 오랜만이에요. (Oraenmanieyo.) “Long time no see.” |
| 오랜만 (Oraenman) means something like “for a while”. It literally means something like, it’s been a while. |
| 4. 어떻게 지내요? (Eotteoke jinaeyo?) “How are you?” |
| Unlike English expression, “How are you?”, it’s not a good idea to say it to someone you see every day because it literally means something like how you’ve lived like how you have spent your days. So just use that when you haven’t seen someone for a while like at least for a week. |
| 5. 잘 되가요? (Jal doegayo?) “How is it going?” |
| If you know that your friend or someone else has been doing something for a while, you can say that 잘 되가요? (Jal doegayo?) “How is it going?”. Like for example, if your friend has a big project and you know that person has kept doing it, you can say that 잘 되가요? (Jal doegayo?) “How is it going?”. |
| 6. 잘 지내? (Jal jinae?) “What's up?” |
| So this can be used only between friends, but only when you haven’t seen your friend for a while. So if you haven’t seen your friend for a week, but you just saw your friend in a campus, you can say that 잘 지내? (Jal jinae?) “What's up?”, or if you just see someone every day, you can just say 안녕 (annyeong) which means “hello”. That covers all the different types of the English expressions to say hello. |
| 7. 안녕하세요 (Annyeonghaseyo) “Good afternoon.” |
| For good morning, we have that expression 좋은 아침이에요. (Joeun achimieyo) which means the same, but for good afternoon, we haven’t made the expression yet so you just have to say 안녕하세요 (annyeonghaseyo) if it is in the afternoon. Or the other common expression is 밥 먹었어요? (bap meogeosseoyo?) It literally means “Did you eat rice?”, but it’s a very common expression that people exchange in the afternoon especially after the lunch hour. It doesn’t mean like I really want to know if it is something or not. It’s just like hello. So if someone asks you, 밥 먹었어요? (bap meogeosseoyo?), then you can just say 네 먹었어요 (ne meogeosseoyo), and then talk about something else which means, “Yes I ate.”, and then you can talk about something else. |
| 8. 안녕하세요 (Annyeonghaseyo) “Good evening.” |
| We have a same expression for good evening because there is no expression yet only for the evening. Some people might say, 좋은저녁이 (joeunjeonyeogi) but it does not sound good/natural in Korean. Instead, if it is in the evening, people might say 먼저 가겠습니다 (meonjeo gagetseumnida), “I’ll leave first” if it’s at the office or 내일 봐요 (naeil bwayo) “see you tomorrow” if it’s between friends. So pick the right expression depending on the situation. |
| 9. 반가워요. (Bangawoyo) “It's nice to meet you.” |
| Yeah, if you see someone for the very first time, you can say that 반가워요. (Bangawoyo). For formal situation, you can say 반갑습니다 (bangapseumnida). |
| 10. 요즘 별일 없죠? (Yojeum byeoril eopjyo?) “How is everything?” |
| So 별일 (byeoril) here means something special. So it literally means, “You don’t have anything special right?” So to answer this question, you can say, 할일없어 (hal-ileopseo) which means that “there is nothing special.” |
| Okay, we just checked out 10 ways to say hello in Korean. Which expression do you like the most? Let us know in the comments. I’ll see you in the next video. 다음 시간에 뵙겠습니다. (Daeum sigane boepgetsseumnida.) 안녕히 계세요. (Annyeonghi gyeseyo.) |
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