Table of Contents
- Learn Korean: From Newbie to Advanced - November 5, 2020
- Korean Honorifics: Suffixes, Titles, Pronouns, Verbs and More - August 31, 2020
- How to Say Thank You in Korean - August 24, 2020
What Are Korean Honorifics?
There are 3 basic dimensions of honorifics in the Korean language: formality, politeness, and honorificity. This means that the type of Korean you speak could change depending on the situation, the status, or the age of the people involved in the conversation.ย To get a better understanding of how these affect the Korean language, letโs look at them individually. Ask yourselfโฆ.
- ย Formality: how formal is the context? How familiar are the parties involved? How serious is the situation?
- ย Politeness: is politeness important in this situation? Is the listener older than the speaker? Is the listener of higher status?
- ย Honorificity: how much respect does the speaker want to convey? How much respect does the listener deserve?

In western culture, we do not have these strict sets of guidelines that dictate the words and terms we use. However, this concept is not completely absent from the English language. Imagine you were having a conversation with someone you admired and respected, for example, a politician, a famous genius, or an accomplished CEO.ย You would probably adjust your manner of speaking to reflect your respect for that person.
If you had a meeting with the president of your country, even if you hate that president, you would probably speak and behave with elevated manners, compared to how you would speak to a friend or family member. Compare:
- To your friend: โHey buddy, whatโs up?โ
- To the President: โHello, Mr. President. Itโs a pleasure to speak with you.โ
This is the general concept of Korean Honorifics, except in Korean culture, the practice is much more common and complex.
Why Do Koreans Use Honorifics?
To show respect to people who are older or of higher status Koreans use honorifics because Korean culture is built on a foundation of Confucianism: which places high importance on social status and age.ย ย
This hierarchy is accepted and rarely challenged. Part of acknowledging this hierarchy is through the practice of using honorifics in communication. By doing so, you are showing the respect that the listener deserves according to their position in the social hierarchy. Wealth, success, accomplishment, and age are considered important characteristics that should be recognized.
Age
This hierarchical culture is followed strictly.ย Not only just for differences in status but differences in age as well: even a 1-year age difference is considered enough to warrant honorificity. This article will tell you more about Korean age.ย
In many situations, you will see Koreans become overjoyed when they learn that their conversation partner is the same age. They’ll smile, hi-five, giggle, maybe even hug. As strange as it may seem, this is important to them.ย
This is because they can speak freely and comfortably to people of the same age, so they will refer to each other as ์น๊ตฌ (chingu, meaning friend), even if they are not close. But if their conversation partner is older, they must use a more polite and formal way of speaking. If they donโt, it could be thought of as disrespectful, embarrassing, or socially insensitive.
This disrespectful situation can also be observed in dramas and everyday life. You may witness a Korean ask another person, โWhy are you using this language with me?โ More precisely, โWhy are you using ๋ฐ๋ง?โ The use of ๋ฐ๋ง (ban-mal) is strictly for familiar and informal relationships. Using it inappropriately could be disrespectful and make for an interesting situation, but many times it can be used to tease one another or make jokes.
Status
Differences in status or position is another very common reason to use honorifics.ย Honorifics are usually used vertically; from lower-status to higher-status, or younger to older.ย Examples:
–ย ย ย ย Teacher to Student
–ย ย ย ย Employee to Manager, or any superior in the company.
–ย ย ย ย Child to parent or grandparent.
–ย ย ย ย Citizen to Public official.
Commonly, these titles have particular terms that must be used when a subordinate is addressing a senior.ย The most common ones are ๋ (nim) and ์จ (ssi) which are attached to a personโs title or name to signify honorficity.ย Weโll take a look at some examples later.
Do I Need to Learn Korean Honorifics?ย
As a beginner, it is not necessary to use all honorifics correctly in every situation. (Click here for the most comprehensive guide for beginners.) But, when speaking with older Korean or people of high status, you should try to imply respect when possible.ย You can get by in most conversations without using Korean honorifics. Sometimes, it can even be fun to use honorifics with your Korean friends.
์ค๋น (oppa), ํ (hyeong),ย ์ธ๋ (eonni) and ๋๋ (nuna) are probably the most common you will hear and use in everyday life, KPOP, and K-Dramas. Koreans love to figure out each otherโs age so they can use these honorifics with each other. These honorifics will often be used in place of the personโs name.ย So, it could be really helpful to understand these honorifics when you hear other people use them.
Suffixes & Titles of Korean Honorifics
Korean Honorific Suffix ๋(nim)
The use of ๋(nim) is often attached to peopleโs names or titles, and it roughly translates into Mr. Name or Mrs./Ms. Name.ย ย

In western culture, using Mr. or Mrs. may make the listener feel old, and therefore uncomfortable. This is not true in Korea.ย ๋ is a way to show respect to someone older and is used as the more formal version of a personโs title or relationship.
For example:
–ย ย ย ย ํ ์๋ฒ์ง is similar to Grandpa, compared to ํ ์๋ฒ๋ (which is more formal and respectful) similar to Grandfather.
Sometimes the meaning does not change but simply implies formality and politeness. For example:
– ย ย ย ย ๊ธฐ์ฌ means Driver.ย ๊ธฐ์ฌ๋ also means Driver but is more polite and formal.ย So that latter is used when speaking directly to the subject.ย
Korean Honorific Suffix ์จ(ssi)
The use of ์จ(ssi) is similar to the use of ๋ (above) but it is only attached to peopleโs names (given name, family name, or full name) to represent formality and politeness.
For example, if you are waiting at the doctorโs office, the receptionist may call your name with ์จ attached to the end because it is a professional situation, and therefore more formal.ย Compare:ย
–ย ย ย ย Suzy ์์ง (informal)ย compared to ย Suzy ์์ง ์จย (formal)

Korean Honorifics: Family Titles
You can find a list of honorific family titles in Korean. The general rule is to attach ๋ after Korean family member titles to make them honorific titles.ย
You would use the honorific titles to talk about the listenerโs or other peopleโs family members.ย
You may also use the honorific titles to talk about your own family members in formal situations, but you should never use ์๋๋ or ๋ฐ๋ to talk about your own children.
Korean Family Title |
Korean Honorifics for Family Titleย | Meaningย |
ํ ์๋ฒ์ง halabeoji |
ํ ์๋ฒ๋ halabeonim | Paternal grandfather |
ํ ๋จธ๋ halmeoni | ํ ๋จธ๋ halmeonim |
Paternal grandmotherย |
์ธํ ์๋ฒ์ง wehalabeoji |
์ธํ ์๋ฒ๋ wehalabeonim | Maternal grandfather |
์ธํ ๋จธ๋ wehalmeoni | ์ธํ ๋จธ๋ wehalmeonim |
Maternal grandmotherย |
์๋ฒ์ง abeoji |
์๋ฒ๋ abeonim | Father |
์ด๋จธ๋ eomeoni |
์ด๋จธ๋ eomeonim | Mother |
ํ hyeong | ํ๋ hyeongnim |
Older brother (of a male) |
๋๋ nuna |
๋๋ nunim | Older sister (of a male) |
์ค๋น oppa | ์ค๋ผ๋ฒ๋ orabeoni |
Older brother (of a female) |
์ธ๋ eonni |
ํ๋ hyeongnim | Older sister (of a female)ย |
๋์ dongsaeng | ๋์๋ถ dongsaengbun |
Younger siblingย |
์๋ค adeul |
์๋๋ adeulnim | Sonย |
๋ธ ddalย | ๋ฐ๋ ddanim |
Daughterย |
Note:
- It is not a typo but a truth that the Korean honorific for ์ธ๋ is ํ๋. Even many Koreans do not know this fact. This is not a commonly used word after all.
- The only honorific title that doesn’t end with a -๋ suffix in the table is ๋์๋ถ. We add the suffix -๋ถ when calling other people’s younger siblings with respect.
Korean Honorifics: Titles for Non-family
The family member titles for siblings can also be used to address non-family people who are older than you.
You can use ์ ๋ฐฐ(๋) to address people who are older or more senior than you in a certain context, and ํ๋ฐฐ(๋) to address people who are younger or less senior than you.
Korean Titleย |
Korean Honorifics | Meaningย |
ํ hyeong |
ํ๋ hyeongnim | Older maleย (to a male) |
๋๋ nuna |
๋๋ nunim | Older female (to a male) |
์ค๋น oppa |
์ค๋ผ๋ฒ๋ orabeoni |
Older male (to a female) |
์ธ๋ eonni | ํ๋ hyeongnim |
Older female (to a female)ย |
์ ๋ฐฐ seonbae | ์ ๋ฐฐ๋ seonbaenim |
Somebody older or more seniorย |
ํ๋ฐฐ hubae | ํ๋ฐฐ๋ hubaenim |
Somebody younger or less seniorย |
Korean Honorifics: Job Titlesย
You would also want to use honorific titles to refer to people at work, because you want to show enough respect to your superiors and co-workers on professional occasions. You can simply address them with their job title + ๋.ย
Korean Job Titleย |
Korean Honorifics for Job Titleย | Meaningย |
ํ์ฅ hwejang |
ํ์ฅ๋ hwejangnim | Chairmanย |
์ฌ์ฅ sajang |
์ฌ์ฅ๋ sajangnim | CEOย |
๋ถ์ฅ bujang |
๋ถ์ฅ๋ bujangnim | Head of departmentย |
๊ณผ์ฅ gwajang | ๊ณผ์ฅ๋ gwajangnim |
Head of sectionย |
๋๋ฆฌ daeri | ๋๋ฆฌ๋ daerinim |
Assistant managerย |
ํ์ฅ timjang | ํ์ฅ๋ timjangnim |
Team leaderย |
์ค์ฅ siljang | ์ค์ฅ๋ siljangnimย |
General managerย |

If you are a student, you would also use honorific titles to refer to your teachers and professors at school.ย
Korean Job Titleย |
Korean Honorifics for Job Titleย | Meaningย |
์ ์ seonsaeng |
์ ์๋ seonsaengnim |
Teacherย |
๊ต์ gyosuย | ๊ต์๋ gyosunim |
Professorย |
As the example of using ๊ธฐ์ฌ๋ to call your driver mentioned before, you would also use honorific titles to refer to other people around you in the society. Here are more examples of honorific job titles in the society.ย
Korean Job Titleย |
Korean Honorifics for Job Titleย | Meaningย |
์๊ฐ jakka |
์๊ฐ๋ jakkanim | Authorย |
๋ํ daepyo |
๋ํ๋ daepyonim |
Representativeย |
์ ฐํ syepeu | ์ ฐํ๋ syepeunim |
Chefย |
๊ฐ๋ gamdok | ๊ฐ๋ ๋ gamdoknim |
Directorย |

Pronouns of Korean Honorifics
In Korean, it is normal to use honorifics pronouns even when speaking about yourself in the first-person (โIโ) or in the first-person plural (โWeโ).ย This is done to show humility, or imply respect to the listener who may be older of higher status.ย You can see the differences in the table below.
Point of Viewย | Korean Pronoun | Korean Honorifics | Meaningย |
1st person | ๋ na | ์ jeo | I |
1st personย | ์ฐ๋ฆฌ wuri | ์ ํฌ jeohi | Weย |
2nd personย | ๋ neo | ๋น์ dangsin | Youย |
Itโs important to note that when talking about things such as a family, home, car, etc. it is common to use โOur/Weโ (์ฐ๋ฆฌ wuri, ์ ํฌ jeoji) instead of โMyโ.ย This may seem a little unnatural at first, but it becomes rather endearing the more you use it.ย For example:
–ย ย ย ย โMy father works for a companyโย becomesย โOur father works for a companyโ
Even though the listener is not part of the speakerโs family, the speaker is implying a collective notion within his or her own family.

Nouns of Korean Honorifics
Honorifics are so important that Koreans use honorific nouns to show respect when you talk about things related to a person older or higher than you in status.ย
As you can see in the table below, the word actually changes entirely. These are also used in official situations or within government work. So it is important to be aware of the different nouns you may hear as a foreigner in Korea.ย The most common ones are:
–ย ย ย ย Name: ์ด๋ฆ (informal) โ ์ฑํจ (formal)
–ย ย ย ย Person/ People: ์ฌ๋ย (informal)ย โ ๋ถย (informal)
The key point is to understand that you may hear a different word depending on the situation, so itโs great to be aware of these differences which can help you understand.
Korean Noun |
Korean Honorifics |
Meaningย |
์ง jip |
๋ daek | home |
์ด๋ฆ ireum |
์ฑํจ seongham | name |
์์ผ saengil |
์์ saengsin | birthday |
๋์ด nai | ์ฐ์ธ yeonse |
age |
๋ณ byeong | ๋ณํ byeonghwan |
Illness or diseaseย |
๋ง mal | ๋ง์ malsseum |
Words (said by somebody) |
Verbs of Korean Honorifics
Often, verbs can be changed to show respect and politeness in your sentences. This can be very important when communicating with people who are older or of a higher status. As you can see in the examples below, often you can make the verb honorific by adding -(์ผ)์ after the verb stem.ย
The following table illustrates how some regular verbs in Korean are made honorific verbs.ย
Korean Verb |
Korean Honorifics | Meaningย |
๊ฐ๋ค gada |
๊ฐ์๋ค gasida | To goย |
๋ฐ๋ค batda | ๋ฐ์ผ์๋ค bateusida |
To receiveย |
์ด๋ํ๋ค undonghadaย | ์ด๋ํ์๋ค undonghasida |
To do sports or exerciseย |
But, in some cases, the word changes completely.ย
The most common one you will probably be exposed to is the verb EAT:ย ๋จน๋ค or ๋์๋ค.ย Often Koreans ask โ๋ฐฅ ๋จน์์ด์?โ, which means โDid you eat?โย This is basically how Koreans say, โHow are you?โ But, when speaking to an older person you should use ์์ฌํ์ จ์ด์?
The following table provides more examples of irregular Korean honorific verbs.ย
Korean Verbย |
Korean Honorificsย | Meaningย |
๋จน๋คย |
๋์๋ค / ์์ฌํ๋คย | To eatย |
๋ณด๋คย |
๋ต๋คย | To seeย |
๋งํ๋คย |
๋ง์ํ๋คย | To speak, sayย |
์๋คย |
๊ณ์๋คย |
To be somewhere or existย |
์๋คย | ์ฃผ๋ฌด์๋คย |
To sleep |
๋ฐฐ๊ณ ํ๋คย | ์์ฅํ์๋คย |
To be hungryย |
์ฃผ๋คย | ๋๋ฆฌ๋คย |
To give |
์ํ๋คย | ํธ์ฐฎ์ผ์๋คย |
To be sick or be in painย |

Useful Phrases with Korean Honorifics
The structure of the first phrase is: verb stem + ์/์ด/์ฌํด ๋๋ฆด๊ฒ์.ย This is commonly used to tell someone that you will do something for them. You can translate it to โI will do โฆ for you.โย
For example:
๋ณด๊ณ ์๋ฅผ ์จ ๋๋ฆด๊ฒ์.ย
I will write the report for you.ย
If you form this phrase as a question, it will be: verb stem + ์/์ด/์ฌํด ๋๋ฆด๊น์? This is commonly used to ask someone if they would like you to do something for them? It translates to โShall I do โฆ for you?โ. For example:ย
๋ ธ๋ํด ๋๋ฆด๊น์?ย
Shall I sing for you?ย
Here is a polite way to tell someone to sleep well.
์๋ ํ ์ฃผ๋ฌด์ธ์.ย
Sleep well. / Good night.
The following phrases areย very common and great things to say when eating with others.ย
๋ง์ด ๋์ธ์.ย
Please eat a lot.ย
Orย
๋ง์๊ฒ ๋์ธ์.ย
Please enjoy your meal. ย
This can be used to politely tell someone to speak or tell you something.
๋ง์ํ์ธ์.ย
Please speak.
This is used to ask if someone is present or available. This phrase is typically used on the phone.ย
xx ์จ/๋ ๊ณ์ธ์?ย ย
Is xx there?ย
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