Dining Etiquette and Expressions
In this lesson, you'll learn about Korean dining etiquette along with handy expressions to use at the table.
Greetings Before and After a Meal
์ ๋จน๊ฒ ์ต๋๋ค.
Jal meokgesseumnida.
Thank you for the meal. (said before eating)
์ ๋จน์์ต๋๋ค.
Jal meogeosseumnida.
Thank you, that was a great meal. (said after eating)
๋ง์๊ฒ ๋์ธ์.
Masitge deuseyo.
Enjoy your meal.
Etiquette Phrases
| Korean | Romanization | English |
|---|---|---|
| ์์ | sujeo | spoon and chopsticks |
| ์ด๋ฅธ | eoreun | elder |
| ๋จผ์ | meonjeo | first |
| ๊ฐ์ด | gachi | together |
| ๋ฐฐ๋ถ๋ฅด๋ค | baebureuda | to be full |
| ์ ๊ฐ๋ฝ | jeotgarak | chopsticks |
| ์๊ฐ๋ฝ | sutgarak | spoon |
| ๋ฐฐ๊ณ ํ๋ค | baegopeuda | to be hungry |
In Korea, it's polite to wait for the eldest person to pick up their spoon before you start eating.
์ด๋ฅธ์ด ๋์ ํ์ ๋์ธ์.
Eoreuni deusin hue deuseyo.
Please start eating after the elder does.
๋ฐฐ๋ถ๋ฌ์. ์ ๋จน์์ด์.
Baebulleoyo. Jal meogeosseoyo.
I'm full. That was a great meal.
์ฐ๋ฆฌ ๊ฐ์ด ๋จน์ด์.
Uri gachi meogeoyo.
Let's eat together.
๋ฐฐ๊ณ ํ์. ๋นจ๋ฆฌ ๋จน์ด์.
Baegopayo. Ppalli meogeoyo.
I'm hungry. Let's eat soon.
์กฐ๊ธ๋ง ๋ ์ฃผ์ธ์.
Jogeumman deo juseyo.
Just a little more, please.
์ ๋จน์๊ฒ์. ๊ฐ์ฌํฉ๋๋ค.
Jal meogeulgeyo. Gamsahamnida.
Thank you for the meal.
Using Spoon and Chopsticks
In Korea, eat rice and soup with a spoon, and side dishes with chopsticks.
์ ๊ฐ๋ฝ์ง์ด ์์ง ์ํด๋ฌ์.
Jeotgarakjiri ajik seotulleoyo.
I'm still clumsy with chopsticks.
๐ก Tip: Say '์ ๋จน๊ฒ ์ต๋๋ค' (Jal meokgesseumnida) before a meal and '์ ๋จน์์ต๋๋ค' (Jal meogeosseumnida) afterward to express thanks. The two phrases differ only in tense, so they're easy to learn as a pair.