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We use the word ‘sorry’ in so many different ways in English. The most common way is to apologize for something we have done, but we also say sorry to express sympathy, disappointment, and also to politely ask someone to repeat what they have said. Fortunately, ‘sorry’ in Korean isn’t as multi-functional. Nevertheless, there are a number of different ways of saying sorry in Korean, and in this article, we’ll guide you through all the different ways of saying ‘sorry’ in Korean so that you can say ‘sorry’ appropriately in every situation.<\/p>\n
Sorry in English is an adjective, so to say ‘sorry’, we use the verb ‘to be’ and say ‘I am sorry’. However, in Korean ‘sorry’ is a verb.<\/p>\n
\ubbf8\uc548\ud558\ub2e4 is a verb that means ‘to be sorry’, and this is made up of the noun \ubbf8\uc548<\/a> (mi-an) which means ‘sorry’ and the verb \ud558\ub2e4 (ha-da), which means ‘to do’.<\/p>\n When we say ‘I’m sorry’ in Korean, we don’t use the pronoun ‘I’. If we’re saying sorry on someone else’s behalf, then we need to say who we’re saying sorry for. However, in general, the context makes it obvious that it’s the speaker that’s apologizing, so we can just use the verb \ubbf8\uc548\ud558\ub2e4.<\/p>\n \ubbf8\uc548\ud558\ub2e4 is the base form, so we can conjugate this verb into three levels of formality.<\/p>\n We use the formal form \ubbf8\uc548\ud569\ub2c8\ub2e4 in very formal situations, such as when you’re apologizing to senior people at your workplace, or when you’re apologizing to much older members of the family. Generally, the formal form is not commonly used in everyday speech.<\/p>\n The polite form is what you will use the most in everyday life. When you accidentally bump into people, when you step on someone’s foot accidentally, and when you knock over someone’s coffee, you can say \ubbf8\uc548\ud574\uc694. We use \ubbf8\uc548\ud574\uc694 to people we are not familiar with, and with people who are older than us and in more senior position than us.<\/p>\n If you ever need to say sorry in Korean, \ubbf8\uc548\ud574\uc694 is the one that can be used in most situations, so you should familiarize yourself with this expression.<\/p>\n Casual expressions are mainly used with two types of people \u2013 close friends, and close family members. However, it’s important that the close family members are of similar age to you as you shouldn’t say \ubbf8\uc548\ud574 to family members who are older than you. In general, we would use the casual form to our siblings and our cousins.<\/p>\n Sometimes in Korean, we have an entirely different form of the same word, which we use to be even more respectful than the formal form of the original word. For example, the common verb for ‘to give’ is \uc8fc\ub2e4<\/a> (ju-da), but the honorific form is \ub4dc\ub9ac\ub2e4<\/a> (deu-ri-da), and the common verb for ‘to sleep’ is \uc790\ub2e4<\/a> (ja-da), but the honorific form is \uc8fc\ubb34\uc2dc\ub2e4<\/a> (ju-mu-shi-da).<\/p>\n Now, similarly, the common verb for ‘to be sorry’ is \ubbf8\uc548\ud558\ub2e4, but the honorific form is\u2026<\/p>\n Like \ubbf8\uc548\ud558\ub2e4, \uc8c4\uc1a1\ud558\ub2e4 is made up of the noun \uc8c4\uc1a1<\/a> (jwe-song), which means ‘sorry’, and the verb \ud558\ub2e4 which means to do.<\/p>\n \uc8c4\uc1a1\ud558\ub2e4 is the base form, and we can conjugate this into formal and polite forms.<\/p>\n We use the formal form \uc8c4\uc1a1\ud569\ub2c8\ub2e4 if we’re in very formal situations, such as in job interviews, and people who work in the service industry regularly use this formal form when apologizing to the customers.<\/p>\n We use the polite form when we’re apologizing to people who are older than us or are in a more senior position than us in organizations. We also use \uc8c4\uc1a1\ud574\uc694 when apologizing to people who we’ve met for the first time.<\/p>\n To illustrate the differences between \uc8c4\uc1a1\ud574\uc694 and \ubbf8\uc548\ud574\uc694, if a 40-year-old man accidentally steps on a 16 year-old kid’s foot, then the man would say \ubbf8\uc548\ud574\uc694 to apologize as even though the boy is much younger than the man, the man still needs to maintain politeness as he doesn’t know the boy.<\/p>\n On the other hand, if the same man accidentally steps on another man’s foot, who seems about the same age, then the man will likely apologize by saying \uc8c4\uc1a1\ud574\uc694, as not only do they not know each other, there is the possibility that the other man is older than him, so the man has to use respectful language. In fact, in this situation, the man may even apologize by using the formal form \uc8c4\uc1a1\ud569\ub2c8\ub2e4.<\/p>\n More often than not, we don’t just say ‘I’m sorry’, we often say things like ‘I’m so sorry’ or ‘I’m really sorry’ to emphasize how sorry we are. And although the Korean \ubbf8\uc548\ud558\ub2e4 and \uc8c4\uc1a1\ud558\ub2e4 aren’t adjectives like ‘sorry’, we can still use modifiers to highlight how sorry we are. First, we can say ‘I’m really sorry’, like this.<\/p>\n The world \uc815\ub9d0<\/a> (jung-mal) means ‘really’ and it can be used to modify all three forms of sorry, \ubbf8\uc548\ud558\ub2e4. We can also use \uc815\ub9d0 with the formal and polite forms of \uc8c4\uc1a1\ud558\ub2e4, so we can say\u2026<\/p>\n In Korean, there are two words for ‘really’, \uc815\ub9d0 and \uc9c4\uc9dc<\/a> (jin-jja), and you can use \uc9c4\uc9dc instead of \uc815\ub9d0 in all these phrases.<\/p>\n To say ‘I’m so sorry’, we can say:<\/p>\n \ub108\ubb34<\/a> (neo-mu) can mean ‘so’ or ‘too’, and we can use them to further highlight how sorry we are. We can also \ub108\ubb34 with the formal and polite form of \uc8c4\uc1a1\ud558\ub2e4, so we can say\u2026<\/p>\n We’ve already learned two nouns that means sorry, \ubbf8\uc548 and \uc8c4\uc1a1. However, There is another word in Korean that means apology, and it’s \uc0ac\uacfc<\/a> (sa-gwa). \uc0ac\uacfc is also the word for ‘apple’ in Korean, but it’s other meaning is apology. The verb that means ‘to apologize’ is \uc0ac\uacfc\ud558\ub2e4<\/a> (sa-gwa-ha-da). If we want to ask someone to apologize, then we can say\u2026<\/p>\n All three sentences mean either ‘Please apologize’ or ‘Apologize’,<\/p>\nThe formal form of \u201csorry\u201d in Korean<\/h3>\n
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The polite form of \u201csorry\u201d in Korean<\/h3>\n
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The casual form of \u201csorry\u201d in Korean<\/h3>\n
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Honorific form of \u201cto be sorry’\u201d in Korean<\/h2>\n
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Difference between \ubbf8\uc548\ud558\ub2e4 & \uc8c4\uc1a1\ud558\ub2e4<\/h2>\n
What if we’re \u201creally sorry\u201d?<\/h2>\n
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\u201cI’m so sorry\u201d in Korean<\/h3>\n
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\u201cApology\u201d and \u201cApologize\u201d in Korean<\/h2>\n
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Honorific form of \u201cto apologize\u201d in Korean<\/h3>\n
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