KOREAN LANGUAGE TUTORIAL

LESSON 22

Korean lessons: Lesson 22

How to say "you"
the word 'you' is not said often in Korean. Korean people get around saying the word 'you' through a number of ways

1) Most of the time, you use somebody's (usually job) position when referring to them or talking about them.

For example,

Boss (부장님),
Principal (교장선생님),
Vice principal (교감선생님),
Mr. Name (for a teacher) (Name선생님),
customer (고객님),
guest (손님),
회장님/사장님 (president/CEO of a company

2) It is common in Korean to refer to people you are close with as a family member. 오빠 means "older brother" (when you are a woman). But even if somebody is not your older brother, you can call him '오빠' if you are close to him.

3) You can usually call any woman or man that looks very old "grandmother" and
"grandfather" (할머니/할아버지). But other than that, you don't really call
somebody part of your family unless you are close with that person.

4) You can generally call any strange man or woman that you don't know '아저씨'
(man) and '아주머니' (woman).

5) If somebody is younger than you, you can use the word "you" which is: 너.

6) The word "당신" means "you." You may use this word when talking to anybody,

but Korean people rarely use it. Most people that say '당신' are foreigners and
only do so because they are so used to saying "you" in English.