Learn Korean: 50 Essential Phrases for Tourists

 

Learn Korean: 50 Essential Phrases for Tourists

Planning a trip to Korea? Whether you’re strolling through Seoul’s bustling streets, hiking the scenic trails of Jeju Island, or enjoying a bowl of hot bibimbap in a local restaurant, knowing a few Korean phrases can make your travel experience smoother — and much more fun!

Even though many Koreans, especially younger people, understand some English, showing that you’ve learned a few words in Korean goes a long way. It’s a sign of respect and friendliness — and often leads to warmer smiles and better service.

Here are 50 essential Korean phrases every tourist should know, grouped by useful situations.

๐Ÿ—ฃ️ Basic Greetings & Polite Expressions

  1. ์•ˆ๋…•ํ•˜์„ธ์š” (Annyeonghaseyo) — Hello

  2. ์•ˆ๋…•ํžˆ ๊ฐ€์„ธ์š” (Annyeonghi gaseyo) — Goodbye (when someone is leaving)

  3. ์•ˆ๋…•ํžˆ ๊ณ„์„ธ์š” (Annyeonghi gyeseyo) — Goodbye (when you are leaving)

  4. ๊ฐ์‚ฌํ•ฉ๋‹ˆ๋‹ค (Gamsahamnida) — Thank you

  5. ์ฃ„์†กํ•ฉ๋‹ˆ๋‹ค (Joesonghamnida) — I’m sorry

  6. ๊ดœ์ฐฎ์•„์š” (Gwaenchanayo) — It’s okay / I’m fine

  7. ๋„ค (Ne) — Yes

  8. ์•„๋‹ˆ์š” (Aniyo) — No

  9. ์ œ๋ฐœ (Jebal) — Please

  10. ์‹ค๋ก€ํ•ฉ๋‹ˆ๋‹ค (Sillyehamnida) — Excuse me




๐Ÿœ At a Restaurant or Cafรฉ

  1. ๋ฉ”๋‰ด ์ฃผ์„ธ์š” (Menu juseyo) — Please give me the menu

  2. ์ถ”์ฒœํ•ด ์ฃผ์„ธ์š” (Chucheonhae juseyo) — Please recommend something

  3. ์ด๊ฑฐ ๋ญ์˜ˆ์š”? (Igeo mwoyeyo?) — What is this?

  4. ๋ง›์žˆ์–ด์š” (Masisseoyo) — It’s delicious

  5. ๋งต์ง€ ์•Š๊ฒŒ ํ•ด ์ฃผ์„ธ์š” (Maepji anke hae juseyo) — Please make it not spicy

  6. ๋ฌผ ์ฃผ์„ธ์š” (Mul juseyo) — Water, please

  7. ๊ณ„์‚ฐ์„œ ์ฃผ์„ธ์š” (Gyesanseo juseyo) — Please give me the bill

  8. ํฌ์žฅ๋ผ์š”? (Pojang dwaeyo?) — Can I take it to go?

  9. ํ•˜๋‚˜ ๋” ์ฃผ์„ธ์š” (Hana deo juseyo) — Please give me one more

  10. ์ž˜ ๋จน์—ˆ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค (Jal meogeotseumnida) — Thank you for the meal





๐Ÿš• Getting Around & Transportation

  1. ์—ฌ๊ธฐ์š”! (Yeogiyo!) — Over here! (to call someone)

  2. ํƒ์‹œ ๋ถˆ๋Ÿฌ ์ฃผ์„ธ์š” (Taeksi bulleo juseyo) — Please call a taxi

  3. ~์— ๊ฐ€ ์ฃผ์„ธ์š” (~e ga juseyo) — Please go to ~

  4. ์–ผ๋งˆ์˜ˆ์š”? (Eolmayeyo?) — How much is it?

  5. ์นด๋“œ ๋ผ์š”? (Kadeu dwaeyo?) — Do you take cards?

  6. ์ง€ํ•˜์ฒ ์—ญ ์–ด๋””์˜ˆ์š”? (Jihacheol-yeok eodiyeyo?) — Where is the subway station?

  7. ์˜ค๋ฅธ์ชฝ์ด์—์š” (Oreunjjog-ieyo) — It’s on the right

  8. ์™ผ์ชฝ์ด์—์š” (Oenjjog-ieyo) — It’s on the left

  9. ์ง์ง„ํ•˜์„ธ์š” (Jikjin haseyo) — Go straight

  10. ์—ฌ๊ธฐ์„œ ๋‚ด๋ ค ์ฃผ์„ธ์š” (Yeogiseo naeryeo juseyo) — Please drop me off here

๐Ÿ›️ Shopping & Money

  1. ์ด๊ฑฐ ์–ผ๋งˆ์˜ˆ์š”? (Igeo eolmayeyo?) — How much is this?

  2. ์ข€ ๊นŽ์•„ ์ฃผ์„ธ์š” (Jom kkakka juseyo) — Please give me a discount

  3. ์นด๋“œ๋กœ ํ• ๊ฒŒ์š” (Kadeuro halgeyo) — I’ll pay by card

  4. ํ˜„๊ธˆ์œผ๋กœ ํ• ๊ฒŒ์š” (Hyeongeumeuro halgeyo) — I’ll pay in cash

  5. ๋„ˆ๋ฌด ๋น„์‹ธ์š” (Neomu bissayo) — It’s too expensive

  6. ์žˆ์–ด์š” / ์—†์–ด์š” (Isseoyo / eopsseoyo) — I have it / I don’t have it

  7. ๋‹ค๋ฅธ ์ƒ‰ ์žˆ์–ด์š”? (Dareun saek isseoyo?) — Do you have another color?

  8. ์ด๊ฑฐ ์ฃผ์„ธ์š” (Igeo juseyo) — I’ll take this one

  9. ์„ ๋ฌผ์ด์—์š” (Seonmur-ieyo) — It’s a gift

  10. ๋ด‰ํˆฌ ์ฃผ์„ธ์š” (Bongtu juseyo) — Please give me a bag

๐Ÿจ Hotels & Accommodation

  1. ์˜ˆ์•ฝํ–ˆ์–ด์š” (Yeyakhaesseoyo) — I have a reservation

  2. ๋นˆ ๋ฐฉ ์žˆ์–ด์š”? (Bin bang isseoyo?) — Do you have a vacant room?

  3. ํ•˜๋ฃจ์— ์–ผ๋งˆ์˜ˆ์š”? (Harue eolmayeyo?) — How much per night?

  4. ์ฒดํฌ์ธ / ์ฒดํฌ์•„์›ƒ (Chekeu-in / Chekeu-aut) — Check-in / Check-out

  5. ์™€์ดํŒŒ์ด ๋น„๋ฐ€๋ฒˆํ˜ธ ๋ญ์˜ˆ์š”? (Waipai bimilbeonho mwoyeyo?) — What’s the Wi-Fi password?

  6. ์ˆ˜๊ฑด ๋” ์ฃผ์„ธ์š” (Sugeon deo juseyo) — Please give me more towels

  7. ๋œจ๊ฑฐ์šด ๋ฌผ ์•ˆ ๋‚˜์™€์š” (Tteugeoun mul an nawayo) — The hot water isn’t working

  8. ์ฒญ์†Œํ•ด ์ฃผ์„ธ์š” (Cheongso hae juseyo) — Please clean the room

  9. ๋Šฆ๊ฒŒ ์ฒดํฌ์•„์›ƒํ•  ์ˆ˜ ์žˆ์–ด์š”? (Neutge chekeu-aut hal su isseoyo?) — Can I check out late?

  10. ๊ฐ์‚ฌํ•ฉ๋‹ˆ๋‹ค! ์ข‹์€ ํ•˜๋ฃจ ๋ณด๋‚ด์„ธ์š” (Gamsahamnida! Joeun haru bonaeseyo) — Thank you! Have a nice day!



๐Ÿ’ก Tips for Learning Korean While Traveling

  • Learn Hangul (ํ•œ๊ธ€): It’s surprisingly easy to pick up and helps with signs, menus, and transportation.

  • Listen carefully: Many words are used with polite endings like “-์š” (yo),” which make your speech sound respectful.

  • Use gestures and smiles: Even when you forget a phrase, body language and kindness go a long way.

  • Try Korean learning apps: Apps like Talk To Me In Korean or Papago can help you communicate on the go.




Traveling through Korea becomes much more rewarding when you can greet people, order food, and navigate using a few Korean words. It not only helps you connect with locals but also deepens your appreciation for Korean culture.

So before you pack your bags, practice these 50 essential phrases — and get ready to enjoy every moment of your Korean adventure!



Location: ๋Œ€ํ•œ๋ฏผ๊ตญ ์„œ์šธํŠน๋ณ„์‹œ

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