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‘Thank you’ is one those phrases that makes both the speaker and listener happy. Saying ‘thank you’ to express our gratitude makes us feel happy that we’ve recognized someone’s good deeds, and likewise, being appreciated for your help makes the person being thanked happy. ‘Thank you’ in Korean serves the same purpose, and similar to English, there is more than one way of saying ‘thank you’ in Korean, so let’s find out.<\/p>\n
In this article, we’ll explore three levels of formality when saying thank you in Korea. Then, we’ll help you learn a few useful phrases you can use in response to someone saying \u201cthank you\u201d in Korean.<\/p>\n
There are two standard ways of saying thank you in Korean.<\/p>\n
Both mean the same, and they’re both very commonly used.<\/p>\n
We use these expressions when expressing our gratitude to people we aren’t familiar with, or with people who are older and\/or are senior in rank in an organization. So if you want to say ‘thank you’ in Korean to a stranger, to your grandparents, or to the CEO of your workplace, you can say \uac10\uc0ac\ud569\ub2c8\ub2e4 or \uace0\ub9d9\uc2b5\ub2c8\ub2e4.<\/p>\n
Although both mean the same and are commonly used in Korea, people often say that \uac10\uc0ac\ud569\ub2c8\ub2e4 is more formal than \uace0\ub9d9\uc2b5\ub2c8\ub2e4, so it is a little more common to say \uac10\uc0ac\ud569\ub2c8\ub2e4 than \uace0\ub9d9\uc2b5\ub2c8\ub2e4 when you want to say ‘thank you’ in a formal situation.<\/p>\n
Now although an average Korean learner is unlikely to say this, there is actually an even more formal way of saying ‘thank you’ in Korean:<\/p>\n
\ub300\ub2e8\ud788 means ‘very much’, ‘greatly’, and ‘extremely’, and when this word combines with thank you \uac10\uc0ac\ud569\ub2c8\ub2e4 and becomes \ub300\ub2e8\ud788 \uac10\uc0ac\ud569\ub2c8\ub2e4, it means ‘thank you very much’ or ‘I’m really grateful to you’. \ub300\ub2e8\ud788 is commonly used with \uac10\uc0ac\ud569\ub2c8\ub2e4, but it’s rarely used with \uace0\ub9d9\uc2b5\ub2c8\ub2e4.<\/p>\n
Okay, so when do people say \ub300\ub2e8\ud788 \uac10\uc0ac\ud569\ub2c8\ub2e4? In what kind of situation would people say this extremely formal version of thank you in Korean?<\/p>\n
Now, imagine that you’re a real estate agent, and you’re hosting an open house. Not many people have showed up, but all of a sudden, in comes your first customer. To say ‘thank you very much for coming’ in Korean, you could say ‘\uc640 \uc8fc\uc154\uc11c \ub300\ub2e8\ud788 \uac10\uc0ac\ud569\ub2c8\ub2e4.’ (wa-ju-syu-seo gam-sa-ham-ni-da). \uc640 \uc8fc\uc154\uc154 means ‘for coming’, or ‘because you came’, so the whole phrase means ‘thank you very much for coming’.<\/p>\n
Although there are two formal ways of saying ‘thank you’ in Korean, only one of those can be conjugated into a polite form of ‘thank you’.<\/p>\n
We can change \uace0\ub9d9\uc2b5\ub2c8\ub2e4 to\u2026<\/p>\n
This is a polite way of saying thank you in Korean. However, ‘\uace0\ub9c8\uc6cc\uc694’ has limited uses. It’s too formal to use with friends, and it’s not formal and polite enough to use with people who you’ve just met, people who are older than you, or people who are senior in rank than you in an organization.<\/p>\n
So when can we use \uace0\ub9c8\uc6cc\uc694? \uace0\ub9c8\uc6cc\uc694 is commonly used with colleagues who you are familiar with, or are of the same level as you in a work environment because it’s important to be polite and maintain a level of respect at work. You can also use \uace0\ub9c8\uc6cc\uc694 with people whom you’ve met a few times and are of the same age, and you may also use \uace0\ub9c8\uc6cc\uc694 to people who are younger than you because you want to be polite.<\/p>\n
When speaking Korean, it’s important to know when to use the formal language and the polite language. However, it’s just as important to know when to use the casual language. Like the polite form of thank you in Korean, we can conjugate \uace0\ub9d9\uc2b5\ub2c8\ub2e4 to make the casual form of ‘thank you’ in Korean, and it’s\u2026<\/p>\n
\uace0\ub9c8\uc6cc is casual and informal, and it means ‘thanks’. This casual form of Korean is often called ‘\ubc18\ub9d0<\/a>‘ (ban-mal).<\/p>\n \ubc18\ub9d0 is a form of language that’s only used with people who you are close to, such as friends or your siblings, and using \ubc18\ub9d0 can come across very impolite when used with people you shouldn’t be using it with. \uace0\ub9c8\uc6cc is also used with people who are younger than you but only if you are familiar with them or the person who’s younger than you is a child. \uace0\ub9c8\uc6cc is never used between two adults who aren’t familiar with each other, even if there is a big age gap between the two people. This is because, as mentioned already, it can come across very rude and it’s important to be respectful when speaking to people in Korea.<\/p>\n We’ve already learned to modify \uac10\uc0ac\ud569\ub2c8\ub2e4 with \ub300\ub2e8\ud788, but \ub300\ub2e8\ud788 is very formal, and it’s only used to modify the formal thank you \uac10\uc0ac\ud569\ub2c8\ub2e4 \u2013 and quite frankly, an average Korean learner is unlikely to use this word.<\/p>\n However, we can also modify the polite form \uace0\ub9c8\uc6cc\uc694, the casual form \uace0\ub9c8\uc6cc, and the formal \uac10\uc0ac\ud569\ub2c8\ub2e4 and \uace0\ub9d9\uc2b5\ub2c8\ub2e4 with the words \uc815\ub9d0<\/a> (jung-mal) which means ‘really’. So we can say:<\/p>\n Additionally, we can use modifiers ‘\uc9c4\uc9dc<\/a>‘ (jin-Jja) which also means ‘really’:<\/p>\n And ‘\ub108\ubb34<\/a>‘ (neo-mu), meaning ‘too’:<\/p>\n Although the English ‘too’ is often used to express something negative, as in ‘too expensive’ or ‘too hot’, this use of ‘\ub108\ubb34’ in Korean is used to express that someone feels grateful very much.<\/p>\n Now, so far we’ve learned the two forms of thank you in Korean \uac10\uc0ac\ud569\ub2c8\ub2e4 and \uace0\ub9d9\uc2b5\ub2c8\ub2e4, the three different levels of formality and how we can conjugate \uace0\ub9d9\uc2b5\ub2c8\ub2e4, and the modifiers we can use with ‘thank you’ in Korean. Let’s now look at how we can respond to someone saying ‘thank you’.<\/p>\n If you type, ‘you’re welcome’ in a dictionary, you will learn that the Korean version of ‘you’re welcome’ is\u2026<\/p>\n \ucc9c\ub9cc\uc5d0\uc694 is a VERY formal way of responding to someone saying thank you, and unless you’re in an incredibly formal setting, you’re unlikely to use this phrase \u2013 even Koreans rarely use this phrase.<\/p>\n A more common, yet still formal way of responding to someone saying ‘thank you’ is\u2026<\/p>\n ‘\ubcc4\ub9d0\uc500\uc744\uc694’ means ‘don’t mention it’. This phrase is formal and more commonly used than \ucc9c\ub9cc\uc5d0\uc694.<\/p>\n Finally, the most commonly used response to ‘thank you’, which is less form, but a polite response, is\u2026<\/p>\n ‘\uc544\ub2c8\uc5d0\uc694’ means ‘not at all’, and of all the three phrases, this is the most commonly used expression when responding to ‘thank you in Korean’, mainly because it can be used in less formal settings.<\/p>\n So the three responses to thank you are:<\/p>\n Great, before we end this article on ways to say ‘thank you’ in Korean, here’s a bonus expression. When someone offers something, and we want to say ‘no’, in English it’s common to say ‘no thank you’. So how do we say this in Korean?<\/p>\n In Korean, there are two common ways to say ‘no thank you’ and one of them we’ve learned already.<\/p>\n The first way to say ‘no thank you’ is\u2026<\/p>\n \uc544\ub2c8\uc5d0\uc694, which we can use in response to someone saying ‘thank you’, can also be used to say ‘no, thank you’. \uc544\ub2c8\uc5d0\uc694 is the polite form, and we can conjugate it to a more formal form ‘\uc544\ub2d9\ub2c8\ub2e4’ (a-nim-ni-da).<\/p>\n The second way of saying ‘no thank you’ in Korean is\u2026<\/p>\nModifying ‘thank you’ in Korean<\/h2>\n
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‘You’re welcome’ in Korean<\/h2>\n
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‘No, thank you’ in Korean<\/h2>\n
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