Learn Korean (TTMIK)

Lesson 3

Do you remember how to say “Hello.” in Korean?

an-nyeong-ha-se-yo

If you remember an-nyeong-ha-se-yo, that is fantastic. And if you even remember that “annyeong” in an-nyeong-ha-se-yo

 means “peace” and “well-being”, that is even more fantastic.

an-nyeong = well-being, peace, health

And in Korean, when you say “Good-bye” in formal/polite Korean, jondaetmal, there are two types of expressions, and both of these expressions have the word an-nyeong in them.

One is when you are the one who is leaving.

And the other is when you are the one who is staying.

If you are leaving, and the other person is (or the other people are) staying, you can say:

an-nyeong-hi gye-se-yo

If you are staying, and the other person is (or the other people are) leaving, you can say:

an-nyeong-hi ga-se-yo

For now, don’t worry about the literary meaning of the expressinos and just learn them as they are, but if you are really curious and if we were forced to translate these greetings, they would be translated like this.

an-nyeong-hi gye-se-yo. = Stay in peace.

an-nyeong-hi ga-se-yo. = Go in peace.

But again, don’t worry about the literal meaning of these greetings JUST YET!

When Korean people say an-nyeong-ha-se-yo, an-nyeong-hi gyese-yo or an-nyeong-hi ga-se-yo, they don’t always pronounce EVERY single letter clearly. So often times, what you would hear is just the ending part, “se-yo”

So you can deliberately sound more fluent by just saying se-yo for all of these occasions.