Korean Slang: 14 Words Locals Actually Use
Korean slang is a lively part of everyday conversation that textbooks often overlook. It reflects the culture and humor of the people, making it essential for understanding the nuances of the language. Learning slang can help you sound more natural and relatable when speaking with natives.
Slang sticks when you say it
Reading a slang list does nothing. Say these out loud and get corrected. That is how real Korean lands.
14 Korean slang words worth knowing
| Slang | Say it | What it means | Hear |
|---|---|---|---|
| ๋๋ฐ used to express excitement or amazement ๋๋ฐ! ์ด ์ํ ์ง์ง ์ฌ๋ฐ์ด! (Awesome! This movie is really fun!) | daebak | awesome or jackpot | |
| ํ used to express shock or disbelief ํ, ์ง์ง ๊ทธ๋ฌ์ด? (OMG, did that really happen?) | heol | OMG or wow | |
| ์งฑ used to compliment something or someone ๋ ์ง์ง ์งฑ์ด๋ค! (You are really the best!) | jjang | the best or cool | |
| ๊ท์ฐฎ์ used when something feels like a hassle ์์ ํ๊ธฐ ๊ท์ฐฎ์. (Doing homework is annoying.) | gwi-chan-a | annoying or bothersome | |
| ๋จน๋ฐฉ refers to a trend of eating large amounts of food on camera ์์ฆ ๋จน๋ฐฉ์ด ์ธ๊ธฐ์ผ. (These days, eating broadcasts are popular.) | meokbang | eating broadcast | |
| ์ฌ๋ฐ์ฌ short for '์ฌ๋๋ง๋ค ๋ฐ๋์ด' (it changes by person) ์ฌ๋ฐ์ฌ์ผ, ์ด๋ค ์ฌ๋์ ์ข์ํ๊ณ ์ด๋ค ์ฌ๋์ ์ซ์ดํด. (It depends on the person; some like it and some don't.) | saba-sa | it depends on the person | |
| ์ค๋น used affectionately by younger females towards older males ์ค๋น , ๋ ๋์์ค! (Oppa, help me!) | older brother (used by females) | ||
| ์ธ๋ used affectionately by younger females towards older females ์ธ๋, ์ด๊ฑฐ ์์๋ค! (Unnie, this is pretty!) | older sister (used by females) | ||
| ๊ฟ์ผ used to describe something very entertaining ์ด ๊ฒ์์ ๊ฟ์ผ์ด์ผ! (This game is super fun!) | kkul-jaem | super fun | |
| ๋
ธ์ผ used to describe something boring ๊ทธ ์ํ ๋
ธ์ผ์ด์์ด. (That movie was not fun.) | no-jaem | not fun | |
| ์งค refers to a funny image or meme shared online ๊ทธ ์งค ์ง์ง ์๊ฒจ! (That meme is really funny!) | jjal | meme or image | |
| ๋ฉ๋ถ used when feeling overwhelmed or confused ์ํ ์ค๋นํ๋ค๊ฐ ๋ฉ๋ถ ์์ด. (I got a mental breakdown while preparing for the exam.) | men-bung | mental breakdown | |
| ์ฉ์ด used to express admiration ๊ทธ ์ถค ์ฉ์ด! (That dance is amazing!) | jjeoreo | amazing or awesome | |
| ํ์ดํ
used to cheer someone on ์ํ ์ ๋ด, ํ์ดํ
! (Do well on your exam, go for it!) | paiting | fighting or go for it |
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Frequently asked questions
Is it okay to use slang with older people?
It's generally better to avoid slang with older people unless you know them well, as it can come off as disrespectful.