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

1. About (as in, talk about yourself): _ 대해서
2. After: _후에
3. Again: 다시
4. All: 모든
5. And: 과
6. Any (as in, I couldn’t find any):
7. At: 에서
8. Because (as in, because of you): _ 때문에
9. Before: _전에
10. Bring: 가져오다
11. But: 하지만
12. Can: _ 수있다
13. Cant _ 못하다
14. Come: 오다
15. Culture: 문화
16. Dad: 아버지
17. Day: 일
18. Do: 하다
19. Don’t know: 모르다
20. Eat: 먹다
21. Find: 찾다
22. From (as in, from then until now): _부터
23. Front: (as in, in front of something) 앞
24. Get: 받다
25. Give: 주다
26. Go: 가다
27. Good (as in, a good neighbor): 좋은_
28. Have: _ 있다
29. He: 그
30. Her (as in, her friend): 그녀의
31. Her: 그녀
32. Here: 여기에
33. Him: 그를
34. His (as in, his ugly car): 그의
35. How (as in, how did you do that?): 어떻게 _
36. House/home: 집
37. I: 나는 [Note, don’t refer to yourself this way to high status people].
38. If: _면
39. In: _ 에서
40. It: 그것
41. Know: 알다
42. Last (as in, last Christmas): 지난
43. Like: 좋다
44. Like (as in, to be similar): 같다
45. Little (as in, a little salt): 좀
46. Live: 살다
47. Look: 보이다
48. Make (as in, make some trouble): 만들다
49. Man: 남자
50. Many: 많은_
51. Mom: 어머니
52. More (as in, one more time): _더
53. Month: 달
54. My: 내
55. New: 새로운
56. No: 아니
57. Now: 지금
58. On: 에
59. One: 한
60. Only (as in, only you understand me): 만
61. Other: 다른 것
62. Our: 우리의
63. People: 사람
64. Question:  문제
65. Say: 말하다
66. See: 보다
67. Second (as in, one second): 초
68. She: 그녀는
69. So: 그래서
70. Some: 약간
71. Sound: 소리
72. Take: 갖다
73. Tell: 말하다
74. That: 그
75. Their: 그들의
76. There: 저쪽에
77. These: 이들
78. They: 그들
79. Thing: 것
80. Think: 생각하다
81. This: 이것
82. Those: 그것
83. Time (as in, what is the time?): 시간
84. Two: 두/이
85. Use: 이용하다
86. Very: 아주
87. Want (as in, I want to go shopping): 하고 싶다
88. Way (as in, which way?): 길
89. We: 우리
90. Well (as in, well done!): 잘
91. What (as in, what are you talking about?): 뭐
92. When: 언제
93. Which: 어느
94. Who: 누구
95. Why: 왜
96. With: 와
97. Work: 일
98. Year: 년
99. You: 너
100. 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.}