Top 100 Korean Words For Beginners
When I started learning the Korean language I found textbooks to be boring. Just following the book made it take a long time to finally learn the top 100 Korean words for daily life.
So here is my list of the top 100. But there’s a twist.
When you’re learning a new language, I found that you tend to think in your original language first. Since I was not familiar with the words in my target language, I always thought of the words I wanted to say in English first, regardless of whether those words were the most common in Korean or not.
And that makes sense. Until you’re more familiar with a new language, you’re going to be translating every word in your head as you basically translate yourself.
So here instead is a list of the top 100 most common English words, in Korean, that actually you are more likely to use when trying to express yourself at a basic, beginner stage.*
The Top 100 Korean Words to Learn
- About (as in, talk about yourself): _ 대해서
- After: _후에
- Again: 다시
- All: 모든
- And: 과
- Any (as in, I couldn’t find any):
- At: 에서
- Because (as in, because of you): _ 때문에
- Before: _전에
- Bring: 가져오다
- But: 하지만
- Can: _ 수있다
- Cant _ 못하다
- Come: 오다
- Culture: 문화
- Dad: 아버지
- Day: 일
- Do: 하다
- Don’t know: 모르다
- Eat: 먹다
- Find: 찾다
- From (as in, from then until now): _부터
- Front: (as in, in front of something) 앞
- Get: 받다
- Give: 주다
- Go: 가다
- Good (as in, a good neighbor): 좋은_
- Have: _ 있다
- He: 그
- Her (as in, her friend): 그녀의
- Her: 그녀
- Here: 여기에
- Him: 그를
- His (as in, his ugly car): 그의
- How (as in, how did you do that?): 어떻게 _
- House/home: 집
- I: 나는 [Note, don’t refer to yourself this way to high status people].
- If: _면
- In: _ 에서
- It: 그것
- Know: 알다
- Last (as in, last Christmas): 지난
- Like: 좋다
- Like (as in, to be similar): 같다
- Little (as in, a little salt): 좀
- Live: 살다
- Look: 보이다
- Make (as in, make some trouble): 만들다
- Man: 남자
- Many: 많은_
- Mom: 어머니
- More (as in, one more time): _더
- Month: 달
- My: 내
- New: 새로운
- No: 아니
- Now: 지금
- On: 에
- One: 한
- Only (as in, only you understand me): 만
- Other: 다른 것
- Our: 우리의
- People: 사람
- Question: 문제
- Say: 말하다
- See: 보다
- Second (as in, one second): 초
- She: 그녀는
- So: 그래서
- Some: 약간
- Sound: 소리
- Take: 갖다
- Tell: 말하다
- That: 그
- Their: 그들의
- There: 저쪽에
- These: 이들
- They: 그들
- Thing: 것
- Think: 생각하다
- This: 이것
- Those: 그것
- Time (as in, what is the time?): 시간
- Two: 두/이
- Use: 이용하다
- Very: 아주
- Want (as in, I want to go shopping): 하고 싶다
- Way (as in, which way?): 길
- We: 우리
- Well (as in, well done!): 잘
- What (as in, what are you talking about?): 뭐
- When: 언제
- Which: 어느
- Who: 누구
- Why: 왜
- With: 와
- Work: 일
- Year: 년
- You: 너
- Your: 너의
Things You Need
To make full use of this list you will have to know how to read Korean characters or script, also called Hangeul.
It might sound like a pain but honestly it is one of the easiest things you will ever do. It will take you 30 minutes and I promise you will feel like a rockstar when you’ve mastered it.
You can find a bunch of videos online, but here is one that I found fast and useful:
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*Ps. I will admit that I dropped out a lot of very common but non-beginner words such as grammatical connectors. If you want to learn more Korean grammar, check out Talk To Me In Korean’s great grammar lessons here.