Korean honorifics

Korean Honorifics: Suffixes, Titles, Pronouns, Verbs and More

An educator, designer, and content creator with 10 years of experience. Currently happily living and working in South Korea as a university professor. Enjoys Korean culture, food (especially Bibimbap), dramas, spending time in Korea's beautiful mountains. Has a variety of Korean experiences and relationships that have contributed to his knowledge of Korean culture and its people.
Keith Richer
Latest posts by Keith Richer (see all)

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, letโ€™s look at them individually. Ask yourselfโ€ฆ.

  • 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?
korean honorifics: korean sebae
Korean Sebae – Illustration by Suzy Chung on Korea.net

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:

  1. To your friend: โ€œHey buddy, whatโ€™s up?โ€
  2. To the President: โ€œHello, Mr. President. Itโ€™s 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 ์นœ๊ตฌ (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 donโ€™t, 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, โ€œWhy are you using this language with me?โ€ More precisely, โ€œWhy are you using ๋ฐ˜๋ง?โ€ The use of ๋ฐ˜๋ง (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 personโ€™s title or name to signify honorficity.ย  Weโ€™ll take a look at some examples later.

korean honorifics: status comparison in korean culture

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‹ˆ (eonni) and ๋ˆ„๋‚˜ (nuna) are probably the most common you will hear and use in everyday life, KPOP, and K-Dramas. Koreans love to figure out each otherโ€™s age so they can use these honorifics with each other. These honorifics will often be used in place of the personโ€™s 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 peopleโ€™s names or titles, and it roughly translates into Mr. Name or Mrs./Ms. Name.ย ย 

korean honorifics: ๋‹˜ on Korean instagram
The Korean version of Instagram adds ๋‹˜ after user IDs.

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 personโ€™s title or relationship.

For example:

–ย  ย  ย  ย  ํ• ์•„๋ฒ„์ง€ is similar to Grandpa, compared to ํ• ์•„๋ฒ„๋‹˜ (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  ๊ธฐ์‚ฌ means Driver.ย  ๊ธฐ์‚ฌ๋‹˜ 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 peopleโ€™s names (given name, family name, or full name) to represent formality and politeness.

For example, if you are waiting at the doctorโ€™s 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 ์ˆ˜์ง€ (informal)ย  compared to ย  Suzy ์ˆ˜์ง€ ์”จย  (formal)

korean honorfics: ์”จ
Image From Online Newsletter of National Institute of Korean Language

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 listenerโ€™s or other peopleโ€™s 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 ์•„๋“œ๋‹˜ or ๋”ฐ๋‹˜ to talk about your own children.

Korean Family Title

Korean Honorifics for Family Titleย  Meaningย 

ํ• ์•„๋ฒ„์ง€ halabeoji

ํ• ์•„๋ฒ„๋‹˜ halabeonim Paternal grandfather
ํ• ๋จธ๋‹ˆ halmeoni ํ• ๋จธ๋‹˜ halmeonim

Paternal grandmotherย 

์™ธํ• ์•„๋ฒ„์ง€ wehalabeoji

์™ธํ• ์•„๋ฒ„๋‹˜ wehalabeonim Maternal grandfather
์™ธํ• ๋จธ๋‹ˆ wehalmeoni ์™ธํ• ๋จธ๋‹˜ wehalmeonim

Maternal grandmotherย 

์•„๋ฒ„์ง€ abeoji

์•„๋ฒ„๋‹˜ abeonim Father

์–ด๋จธ๋‹ˆ eomeoni

์–ด๋จธ๋‹˜ eomeonim Mother
ํ˜• hyeong ํ˜•๋‹˜ hyeongnim

Older brother (of a male)

๋ˆ„๋‚˜ nuna

๋ˆ„๋‹˜ nunim Older sister (of a male)
์˜ค๋น  oppa ์˜ค๋ผ๋ฒ„๋‹ˆ orabeoni

Older brother (of a female)

์–ธ๋‹ˆ eonni

ํ˜•๋‹˜ hyeongnim Older sister (of a female)ย 
๋™์ƒ dongsaeng ๋™์ƒ๋ถ„ dongsaengbun

Younger siblingย 

์•„๋“ค adeul

์•„๋“œ๋‹˜ adeulnim Sonย 
๋”ธ ddalย  ๋”ฐ๋‹˜ ddanim

Daughterย 

Note:

  1. It is not a typo but a truth that the Korean honorific for ์–ธ๋‹ˆ is ํ˜•๋‹˜. Even many Koreans do not know this fact. This is not a commonly used word after all.
  2. The only honorific title that doesn’t end with a -๋‹˜ suffix in the table is ๋™์ƒ๋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)

๋ˆ„๋‚˜ nuna

๋ˆ„๋‹˜ nunim Older female (to a male)

์˜ค๋น  oppa

์˜ค๋ผ๋ฒ„๋‹ˆ orabeoni

Older male (to a female)

์–ธ๋‹ˆ 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: how to address other people (non-family)

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 

ํšŒ์žฅ hwejang

ํšŒ์žฅ๋‹˜ hwejangnim Chairmanย 

์‚ฌ์žฅ sajang

์‚ฌ์žฅ๋‹˜ sajangnim CEOย 

๋ถ€์žฅ bujang

๋ถ€์žฅ๋‹˜ bujangnim Head of departmentย 
๊ณผ์žฅ gwajang ๊ณผ์žฅ๋‹˜ gwajangnim

Head of sectionย 

๋Œ€๋ฆฌ daeri ๋Œ€๋ฆฌ๋‹˜ daerinim

Assistant managerย 

ํŒ€์žฅ timjang ํŒ€์žฅ๋‹˜ timjangnim

Team leaderย 

์‹ค์žฅ siljang ์‹ค์žฅ๋‹˜ siljangnimย 

General managerย 

korean honorifics: korean honorific job titles
๋ฏธ์ƒ (Misaeng): a famous K-Drama show about Korean workplace.

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 

์„ ์ƒ seonsaeng

์„ ์ƒ๋‹˜ seonsaengnim

Teacherย 

๊ต์ˆ˜ gyosuย  ๊ต์ˆ˜๋‹˜ gyosunim

Professorย 

As the example of using ๊ธฐ์‚ฌ๋‹˜ 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 

์ž‘๊ฐ€ jakka

์ž๊ฐ๋‹˜ jakkanim Authorย 

๋Œ€ํ‘œ daepyo

๋Œ€ํ‘œ๋‹˜ daepyonim

Representativeย 

์…ฐํ”„ syepeu ์…ฐํ”„๋‹˜ syepeunim

Chefย 

๊ฐ๋… gamdok ๊ฐ๋…๋‹˜ gamdoknim

Directorย 

korean honorifics: ๊ธฐ์‚ฌ๋‹˜
“Mr. Driver, have you not eaten yet?” Image from ์Šค๋ธŒ์Šค๋‰ด์Šค

Pronouns of Korean Honorifics

In Korean, it is normal to use honorifics pronouns even when speaking about yourself in the first-person (โ€œIโ€) or in the first-person plural (โ€œWeโ€).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  ์šฐ๋ฆฌ wuri ์ €ํฌ jeohi Weย 
2nd personย  ๋„ˆ neo ๋‹น์‹  dangsin Youย 

Itโ€™s important to note that when talking about things such as a family, home, car, etc. it is common to use โ€œOur/Weโ€ (์šฐ๋ฆฌ wuri, ์ €ํฌ jeoji) instead of โ€œMyโ€.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  โ€œMy father works for a companyโ€ย  becomesย  โ€œOur father works for a companyโ€

Even though the listener is not part of the speakerโ€™s family, the speaker is implying a collective notion within his or her own family.

korean honorifics: ์šฐ๋ฆฌ์ง‘ means my house
2PM’s title song ์šฐ๋ฆฌ์ง‘ means “my house” but not “our house”. Image from SBS Youtube.

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†” ์„ฑํ•จ (formal)

–ย  ย  ย  ย  Person/ People: ์‚ฌ๋žŒย  (informal)ย  โ†” ๋ถ„ย  (informal)

The key point is to understand that you may hear a different word depending on the situation, so itโ€™s great to be aware of these differences which can help you understand.

Korean Noun

Korean Honorifics

Meaningย 

์ง‘ jip

๋Œ daek home

์ด๋ฆ„ ireum

์„ฑํ•จ seongham name

์ƒ์ผ saengil

์ƒ์‹  saengsin birthday
๋‚˜์ด nai ์—ฐ์„ธ yeonse

age

๋ณ‘ byeong ๋ณ‘ํ™˜ byeonghwan

Illness or diseaseย 

๋ง mal ๋ง์”€ malsseum

Words (said by somebody)

Korean honorifics: ๋‚˜์ด vs. ์—ฐ์„ธ

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 -(์œผ)์‹œ 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 

๊ฐ€๋‹ค gada

๊ฐ€์‹œ๋‹ค gasida To goย 
๋ฐ›๋‹ค batda ๋ฐ›์œผ์‹œ๋‹ค bateusida

To receiveย 

์šด๋™ํ•˜๋‹ค undonghadaย  ์šด๋™ํ•˜์‹œ๋‹ค 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  ๋จน๋‹ค or ๋“œ์‹œ๋‹ค.ย  Often Koreans ask โ€œ๋ฐฅ ๋จน์—ˆ์–ด์š”?โ€, which means โ€œDid you eat?โ€ย  This is basically how Koreans say, โ€œHow are you?โ€ But, when speaking to an older person you should use ์‹์‚ฌํ•˜์…จ์–ด์š”?

The following table provides more examples of irregular Korean honorific verbs.ย 

Korean Verbย 

Korean Honorificsย  Meaningย 

๋จน๋‹คย 

๋“œ์‹œ๋‹ค / ์‹์‚ฌํ•˜๋‹คย  To eatย 

๋ณด๋‹คย 

๋ต™๋‹คย  To seeย 

๋งํ•˜๋‹คย 

๋ง์”€ํ•˜๋‹คย  To speak, sayย 

์žˆ๋‹คย 

๊ณ„์‹œ๋‹คย 

To be somewhere or existย 

์ž๋‹คย  ์ฃผ๋ฌด์‹œ๋‹คย 

To sleep

๋ฐฐ๊ณ ํ”„๋‹คย  ์‹œ์žฅํ•˜์‹œ๋‹คย 

To be hungryย 

์ฃผ๋‹คย  ๋“œ๋ฆฌ๋‹คย 

To give

์•„ํ”„๋‹คย  ํŽธ์ฐฎ์œผ์‹œ๋‹คย 

To be sick or be in painย 

korean honorifics: ์„ ๋ฐฐ๋‹˜, ์‹์‚ฌํ•˜์…ง์–ด์š”, ์”จ
Image from Online Newsletter of National Institute of Korean Language

Useful Phrases with Korean Honorifics

The structure of the first phrase is: verb stem + ์•„/์–ด/์—ฌํ•ด ๋“œ๋ฆด๊ฒŒ์š”.ย  This is commonly used to tell someone that you will do something for them. You can translate it to โ€œI will do โ€ฆ for you.โ€ย 

For example:

๋ณด๊ณ ์„œ๋ฅผ ์จ ๋“œ๋ฆด๊ฒŒ์š”.ย 

I will write the report for you.ย 

If you form this phrase as a question, it will be: verb stem + ์•„/์–ด/์—ฌํ•ด ๋“œ๋ฆด๊นŒ์š”? This is commonly used to ask someone if they would like you to do something for them? It translates to โ€œShall I do โ€ฆ for you?โ€. For example:ย 

๋…ธ๋ž˜ํ•ด ๋“œ๋ฆด๊นŒ์š”?ย 

Shall I sing for you?ย 

Here is a polite way to tell someone to sleep well.

์•ˆ๋…•ํžˆ ์ฃผ๋ฌด์„ธ์š”.ย 

Sleep well. / Good night.

The following phrases areย  very common and great things to say when eating with others.ย 

๋งŽ์ด ๋“œ์„ธ์š”.ย 

Please eat a lot.ย 

Orย 

๋ง›์žˆ๊ฒŒ ๋“œ์„ธ์š”.ย 

Please enjoy your meal. ย 

This can be used to politely tell someone to speak or tell you something.

๋ง์”€ํ•˜์„ธ์š”.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/๋‹˜ ๊ณ„์„ธ์š”?ย ย 

Is xx there?ย 

Korean honorifics: ๊ณ„์‹œ๋‹ค vs. ์žˆ๋‹ค

Click here to learn more about Korean learning.

4.7 7 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
5 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Jake
Jake
4 months ago

very useful

goku
goku
4 months ago

useful content for my ass

Last edited 4 months ago by goku
dongbaek
dongbaek
3 months ago
Reply to  goku

i like you already lets get married

hiiiiiiiiii
hiiiiiiiiii
2 months ago
Reply to  goku

ikr LOLLL

Last edited 2 months ago by hiiiiiiiiii
Ishimi
Ishimi
4 months ago

This was so educational ๐Ÿ™‚

5
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x