Introductions in Korean

Perhaps you’re booking into a hotel, or going for an interview. You’ll probably be asked some basic personal questions in Korean like “what is your nationality?” “what is your address?” or “what is your date of birth?” These are all useful things to be able to talk about for everyday conversations as well, so how about we get started…

Resources for further reading:

• Improve your Korean pronunciation
• Want to learn Korean from home? Learn it online!

Pronunciation help for introductions in Korean

Nationalities

Koreans have two ways to name countries: a Hangulisation of the original English name (for example Singgaporeu for Singapore), and the Korean pronunciation of the Chinese version of that country name – eg Ilbon (lit: sun’s origin) for Japan.

Making words for nationalities from country names is easy! You simply need to add ~saram or ~in (the pure Korean and Sino-Korean words for “person”). There are certain occasions where the pronunciation may change with this addition, such as Migook (America) becomes Migook-in (lit: America-person).

Age

A simple way to avoid offence, especially when speaking to someone older than you, and asking about his/her age, is to add the polite ending ~yo to the end of your question.

When asked about your age, birthday, or your daughter/son’s age, here’s how you can answer:

Contact Information

When you’re responding, you can follow one of the simple formats below. Just insert the appropriate information in the brackets.

Filling out Forms in Korean

If you find yourself being asked to fill out forms with your personal details, you won’t get the complete questions that you’ve studied above. Instead, you’ll get short words or phrases.

That’s it for this lesson, well done!

If you want to learn how to say Hello in Korean or other Korean salutations then check these lessons out!

Anyoung hee gaseyo!

Sujung Lee: Rocket Korean