🇰🇷 Lesson 4: Greetings & Essential Phrases

You can read Hangul and you know why Korean words sound the way they do. Now let's use them with people. In this lesson you'll learn to say hello and goodbye (Korean has two goodbyes), introduce yourself, thank and apologise, and ask the questions every beginner needs. You'll also get a first look at something English doesn't have: speech levels, where the ending of a sentence shows how polite you are being.

📖 Speech Levels in Korean

Korean has multiple speech levels based on formality and politeness. As a beginner, focus on two:

Think of it like the difference between "Good afternoon, how may I help you?" and "Hi, what can I get you?" — both are polite, one is more formal. Many phrases in this lesson come in both versions. You'll learn to build these endings yourself in Lesson 7 and study the whole system in Lesson 13; for now, learn each phrase as a whole.

👋 Basic Greetings

🌤️ More Everyday Expressions

🤝 Self-Introduction (자기소개)

Here's a standard self-introduction pattern you can customize:

Key Vocabulary

🙏 Essential Polite Expressions

❓ Useful Questions

🧩 Grammar in Action

No grammar lesson comes before this one — Lessons 1–3 gave you the alphabet and the sound rules instead. So let's put those rules to work on today's phrases. Almost every greeting you just learned contains a rule from Lesson 3; this is why they sound different from how they're spelled.

💬 Dialogue: Meeting Someone New

💡 Culture Note — 씨 (ssi): 씨 is an honorific like "Mr./Ms." attached to a person's full name or first name. Never use 씨 with just a last name — that's rude. Say "수진 씨" or "김수진 씨", not "김 씨." Never use 씨 about yourself, and don't use it for someone clearly senior to you — a teacher is 선생님, not "[name] 씨".

🇰🇷 Culture Note — bows, modesty and "Have you eaten?": A greeting usually comes with a small bow of the head; the more formal the moment, the deeper the bow. When someone compliments your Korean, the natural reply is modest — 아니에요 ("not at all"), exactly as Ray does above — rather than "thank you". And between people who know each other, 밥 먹었어요? ("Have you eaten?") often works as a friendly "how are you?" rather than a real question about lunch.

🌏 Countries & Nationalities

✏️ Exercises

🧠 Check Your Understanding

❓ Common Questions

🔮 Looking Ahead

You've been saying 저는 레이예요 and 이름이 뭐예요? as ready-made phrases. In Lesson 5: Sentence Basics — 이에요, 은/는 & 이/가, you'll open them up: how Korean sentences are ordered, when to use 이에요 versus 예요, and what those little particles 은/는 and 이/가 actually do. From then on you won't just repeat Korean sentences — you'll build them.