Free guide · audio on every phrase
Korean greetings: hello, goodbye, and when to use each
Updated 2026-08-09
Korean greetings are easier than most lists make them look. There is no set of time-of-day phrases: one greeting covers the whole day. Korean picks the phrase by situation instead, and in one case by who is physically walking away, which is the part that catches everyone out.
Pick a moment below and you get the phrase for it, with audio. The sections after that explain the few choices worth understanding rather than memorising.
How do you say hello in Korean?
안녕하세요, roughly annyeonghaseyo. It works at any hour and with almost anyone, so it is the one to learn first. Close friends get 안녕, and a formal first meeting may call for 처음 뵙겠습니다 instead.
Notice what is missing: there is no Korean equivalent of good morning, good afternoon, good evening. 좋은 아침 exists as a translation of good morning, but it reads as borrowed and you will rarely hear it. One phrase covers sunrise to midnight.
Pick your moment
Nine situations, with the phrase that fits each and a note on when to reach for it. Play the leaving pair twice.
안녕하세요
Hello
The default, at any hour, with almost anyone.
안녕
Hi
Close friends and people clearly younger. Also means bye.
처음 뵙겠습니다
How do you do
A formal first meeting: an interview, a client, someone senior.
What 안녕 actually means
안녕 is not a sound that means hello. It is a word meaning peace or wellbeing, so 안녕하세요 is closer to asking whether someone is at peace.
That explains the whole family at once. The goodbyes are built from the same word: 안녕히 가세요 is peacefully go, 안녕히 계세요 is peacefully stay, 안녕히 주무세요 is peacefully sleep. Learn one word and four phrases stop being arbitrary.
The goodbye that depends on who is leaving
English has one goodbye. Korean has two, and the choice is about who is moving. 안녕히 가세요 goes to the person leaving, and 안녕히 계세요 to the person staying. Walking out of a shop you say 계세요 to the staff; seeing a guest out, you say 가세요 to them.
Said to the person who is leaving. Use it when you are staying put.
Said to the person who is staying. Use it when you are the one walking out.
If both of you are leaving, you both say 안녕히 가세요, since you are each addressing someone who is going. If the situation defeats you, 안녕히 계세요 to a shopkeeper is the version a visitor needs most, because you are almost always the one leaving.
When you can drop the 하세요
안녕 on its own is the casual form, serving as both hello and bye. It belongs with close friends, people clearly younger, and children: the same rule that governs every casual form in Korean.
The mistake worth avoiding is using it early. Greeting someone you met an hour ago with 안녕 does not read as friendly, it reads as having decided the relationship on their behalf. The speech levels guide covers when the switch is offered and how to recognise it.
Staying polite costs nothing. 안녕하세요 with a friend sounds mildly formal for a second and then nothing. 안녕 with a stranger lands differently.
The greeting you will hear rather than say
Walk into almost any Korean shop, cafe or restaurant and someone will call 어서 오세요 at you before the door has closed. It means come in, roughly welcome, and it is aimed at customers rather than exchanged between equals. You will hear it constantly and say it almost never.
Knowing it saves the small panic of being greeted with an unfamiliar phrase in your first week. No reply is required. A nod is plenty, and 안녕하세요 works if you feel like it.
Check yourself
Six situations. The leaving pair comes up twice, because it is the one everybody gets backwards.
Quick check
1 / 6
You're leaving a shop. What do you say to the staff?
Greetings are the first twenty words
There are five thousand more, ordered by how often Koreans use them, with native audio and reviews that arrive right before you would forget. The first three levels are free.
Frequently asked questions
- How do you say hello in Korean?
- 안녕하세요, pronounced roughly annyeonghaseyo. It works at any hour and with almost anyone, so it is the one greeting to learn first. Between close friends it shortens to 안녕, and a formal first meeting may use 처음 뵙겠습니다 instead.
- What does 안녕하세요 actually mean?
- 안녕 means peace or wellbeing, so the greeting is closer to "are you at peace?" than to "hello". That is also why it works as both a greeting and a farewell: the goodbyes 안녕히 가세요 and 안녕히 계세요 are the same word wishing you peace on your way or where you stay.
- What is the difference between 안녕히 가세요 and 안녕히 계세요?
- Who is moving. 안녕히 가세요 means go in peace and is said to the person leaving. 안녕히 계세요 means stay in peace and is said to the person staying. Walking out of a shop you say 계세요 to the staff; seeing a guest out you say 가세요 to them. English has one goodbye where Korean has two.
- Do Koreans say good morning and good evening?
- Not as a matter of routine. 안녕하세요 covers the whole day, so there is no set of time-of-day greetings to memorise the way there is in English or French. 좋은 아침 exists as a translation of good morning but sounds borrowed rather than natural in most settings.
- Why do Koreans ask if you have eaten?
- 밥 먹었어요? works as a greeting rather than a literal question, in the way "how are you?" does in English. Answering with a simple yes or no is fine. Nobody is checking whether you need feeding, though they may offer anyway.
- When can I use 안녕 instead of 안녕하세요?
- With close friends, people clearly younger than you, and children. 안녕 is casual speech, so using it with someone older or newly met announces a closeness they have not agreed to. 안녕하세요 is never wrong, which makes it the safe default while you work out the relationship.
- How do you answer the phone in Korean?
- 여보세요. It is used only on the phone, so saying it to someone in front of you sounds strange. Once the conversation is under way you switch to ordinary greetings.