Section 07 · 존댓말
Politeness
Three speech levels you'll hear, and how to pick one.
Korean bakes the speaker's relationship to the listener into every verb ending. You don't pick "polite words"; the entire verb changes. It sounds like a lot, and for a daily-use vocabulary it collapses to three levels you actually need to recognize.
Three levels you'll actually hear
| Level | Name | Where you hear it | "I eat" |
|---|---|---|---|
| Formal polite | 합쇼체 (hapsyo-che) | news, announcements, job interviews, the military | |
| Polite | 해요체 (haeyo-che) | strangers, coworkers, shops, most daily speech | |
| Casual | 반말 / 해체 | close friends, younger siblings, pets, talking to yourself |
Two more levels exist in textbooks (하오체, 하게체) but you won't meet them outside period dramas.
The formal ending: -ㅂ니다 / -습니다
This is the one that sounds most "Korean" to a beginner's ear, with that crisp on the end. It's used in contexts where the relationship is defined: a cashier to a customer, a news anchor to the country, a soldier to an officer. It's not more respectful than 해요체 so much as more public.
- — Hello (formal). You'll catch this in the first line of every newscast.
- — Thank you. The formal form of thanks you've heard in airports.
- — I'll eat well. Said before a meal.
- — You've worked hard. Said to colleagues at the end of a shift.
The workhorse: -요
Haeyo-che is what you'll default to for months. It's polite without being stiff. You drop a -요 on the end of casual speech and you're set for 90% of interactions.
- vs casual
- vs (casual "thanks")
- — Where are you going?
Casual: 반말
Reserved for close relationships, and you usually need the other person's permission to use it. Watch any K-drama and you'll see characters explicitly ask : "can I drop the formality?" If they haven't said yes, you stay in 해요체.
The same phrase, three ways
- Thank you: · ·
- I love you: · ·
- Hello: · ·
Rule of thumb
If you're not sure, use 해요체. Overshooting into formal sounds odd but polite; undershooting into 반말 with a stranger is genuinely rude. Korean speakers will almost never correct you for being too polite.
That's enough groundwork to start listening to real speech. The Listen section pairs each phrase with the drama or song it came from, with the speech level marked.